Thursday, 24 January 2013
BETT 2013
More news - I'll be at the BETT show again this year with heppell.net. BETT is an educational technology trade show held every year, and I've been going on and off for about 10 years now. The plan is to work with school children from Spain, Hounslow in London and Chelmsford in Essex and let their creativity go mad with a bunch of different technology focussed exercises. It's all a bit of a secret, but expect to see toys like Parrot AR.Drones being hacked, Raspberry Pis being pushed to the limits of their capabilities and the kids getting a lot more engaged with things like programming than they ever thought possible! I've even got a Makey Makey kit so hopefully we can do silly stuff with bananas and oranges.. ;-) More soon!
Event in Southend with SET 25th Jan 2013
Just a quick note to say I'm running an event tomorrow in Southend-on-Sea, Essex showing teachers how to get the best out of MIT's Scratch software. The aim is to bring the teachers up to speed so they can start using it (more successfully in the classroom. I will post my slides and resources up on my Blog after the event.
Thursday, 18 October 2012
How do you share research online?
As some of you might know (those who've read down a few posts anyway), I'm turning the informal work I do with Code Ed into a PhD with Bournemouth University. This has always been an ambition of mine to firstly do a PhD, but also spread the work I am doing into the wider academic community in the UK. Obviously, the guys at Raspberry Pi are making making cheap 'hacker' style hardware available and accessible to schools, but they don't really look after the software. What I'm looking at is how do we make coding and hacking more accessible to young minds; especially really young minds.
Fine then, I know a lot of people in this sphere, from folks at Computing at School, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Cambridge University, the wonderful Chelmsford Makerspace, 3D printing gurus and many many more - I won't bore you with my connections in this field. I talk to these people, in informal and formal settings, and I capture the best bits to make sense of answering my PhD hypothesis.
The issue is "How do I share this?" I blog a bit, I tweet a bit, but mostly, I am aware I do a lot of the good stuff offline. When I say the good stuff, I mean the contentious or edgy bits really - the ideas I haven't property formulated or are just hunches or opinion. My Supervisor Stephen thinks that this is where the best stuff is, whereas I think I only like sharing when I have something proven. I don't want some opinionated old so and so telling me my research is rubbish, so I tend to dumb down what I share or only share the bits I'm really confident are right.
It seems this is an endemic problem in PG research and I'm not alone in not sharing my stuff enough, as it seems are my peers who are in the same boat. I know previous PhD students are BU have done brilliant work, but would I know where to find it? Probably I could find their thesis if I tried, likely I'd try and get in touch with them directly and ask them. This doesn't help the media or other PG researchers all around the world find their stuff though. It also means you only get the finished article and you don't see the journey they go through to get to the Thesis. A fellow student (who will remain unnamed) had a research blog, who's final post said "I've stopped blogging as I'm too busy with my PhD!" Hey! You just got to the good bit, thanks!
Anyway, I am going to try and share stuff a bit better via Twitter and my Blog, and BU have asked me to look at ways in which I can share good practice on what I discover... Any input would be gratefully received and as I'm a poor student, please send me your ideas scribbled on the back of a five pound note to... Seriously, you can comment below, you just need a Blogger or Google account. Ta.
..I'm now off to teach people how to program with a Raspberry Pi and Scratch. Update soon!
Fine then, I know a lot of people in this sphere, from folks at Computing at School, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Cambridge University, the wonderful Chelmsford Makerspace, 3D printing gurus and many many more - I won't bore you with my connections in this field. I talk to these people, in informal and formal settings, and I capture the best bits to make sense of answering my PhD hypothesis.
The issue is "How do I share this?" I blog a bit, I tweet a bit, but mostly, I am aware I do a lot of the good stuff offline. When I say the good stuff, I mean the contentious or edgy bits really - the ideas I haven't property formulated or are just hunches or opinion. My Supervisor Stephen thinks that this is where the best stuff is, whereas I think I only like sharing when I have something proven. I don't want some opinionated old so and so telling me my research is rubbish, so I tend to dumb down what I share or only share the bits I'm really confident are right.
It seems this is an endemic problem in PG research and I'm not alone in not sharing my stuff enough, as it seems are my peers who are in the same boat. I know previous PhD students are BU have done brilliant work, but would I know where to find it? Probably I could find their thesis if I tried, likely I'd try and get in touch with them directly and ask them. This doesn't help the media or other PG researchers all around the world find their stuff though. It also means you only get the finished article and you don't see the journey they go through to get to the Thesis. A fellow student (who will remain unnamed) had a research blog, who's final post said "I've stopped blogging as I'm too busy with my PhD!" Hey! You just got to the good bit, thanks!
Anyway, I am going to try and share stuff a bit better via Twitter and my Blog, and BU have asked me to look at ways in which I can share good practice on what I discover... Any input would be gratefully received and as I'm a poor student, please send me your ideas scribbled on the back of a five pound note to... Seriously, you can comment below, you just need a Blogger or Google account. Ta.
..I'm now off to teach people how to program with a Raspberry Pi and Scratch. Update soon!
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Video call with the Raspberry Pi foundation
I was party to a wonderful video conference with Rob from the Raspberry Pi foundation today. Introduced as their only employee(!) this is a company that have sold over 500,000 £29 computers in less than a year!
Rob spoke passionately and enthusiastically about the philosophy of the Raspberry Pi and how it aims to introduce children and adults alike to the wonders of digital creativity in an increasingly consumerist IT culture. In conjunction with an 'open source' IT curriculum in UK schools where teachers can choose how 'codey' their lessons are, the Pi allows those enthusiastic pupils and teachers to experience how a computer and software really works with very little capital outlay. When you think that an iPad costs ten times as much and yet you are never really exposed to how the software on it really works, the Pi looks like incredible value, because unlike an iPad, the possibilities of what you can do with it with no investment except for a little time and learning are limitless.
Even better was that Rob told us that as from yesterday all Pis now have double the RAM and are made in the UK for the same price. Also, if you are worried about waiting lists, you can order a Pi today and have it delivered tomorrow from CPC Farnell.
The video conference was organised as part of Chelmsford's Ideas Festival and was hosted by Anglia Ruskin University.
Rob spoke passionately and enthusiastically about the philosophy of the Raspberry Pi and how it aims to introduce children and adults alike to the wonders of digital creativity in an increasingly consumerist IT culture. In conjunction with an 'open source' IT curriculum in UK schools where teachers can choose how 'codey' their lessons are, the Pi allows those enthusiastic pupils and teachers to experience how a computer and software really works with very little capital outlay. When you think that an iPad costs ten times as much and yet you are never really exposed to how the software on it really works, the Pi looks like incredible value, because unlike an iPad, the possibilities of what you can do with it with no investment except for a little time and learning are limitless.
Even better was that Rob told us that as from yesterday all Pis now have double the RAM and are made in the UK for the same price. Also, if you are worried about waiting lists, you can order a Pi today and have it delivered tomorrow from CPC Farnell.
The video conference was organised as part of Chelmsford's Ideas Festival and was hosted by Anglia Ruskin University.
Scratch classes in Chelmsford
A reminder that I'll be running some taster sessions on Scratch on the RaspberryPi at Changing Chelmsford's Ideas Festival in Chelmsford in Essex, UK on 18th and 19th October... Details here
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
MACME @ Bournemouth Uni
I'll be joining the lovely folk down at Bournemouth Uni where I am doing my PhD on the 20th September to give a quick talk about Practice-Research in the context of my PhD about inspiring kids to start coding. The MA Creative & Media Education is an innovative masters course designed specifically for teachers and college lecturers, or those in relevant educational support and development roles.
It's early days for my Doctorate, so I'm hoping I have enough to share with them! Maybe next year (if I'm invited) I'll be able to share a little more with the students on this course, and I'm sure that actually, the folks on this course will be able to share more with me that I will with them.
I'll put my slides up shortly if anyone is interested.
It's early days for my Doctorate, so I'm hoping I have enough to share with them! Maybe next year (if I'm invited) I'll be able to share a little more with the students on this course, and I'm sure that actually, the folks on this course will be able to share more with me that I will with them.
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Ideas Festival Scratch Classes
Stop Press!
I'll be running a series of workshops at the Chelmsford Ideas Festival 2012 in October 2012 in Chelmsford, a city in Essex, UK.
Why not come along and get involved in learning how to program computers using MIT's Scratch and App Inventor for Android phones. The classes are free, and you'll be able to take away anything you do if you bring a USB stick!
More details soon...
I'll be running a series of workshops at the Chelmsford Ideas Festival 2012 in October 2012 in Chelmsford, a city in Essex, UK.
Why not come along and get involved in learning how to program computers using MIT's Scratch and App Inventor for Android phones. The classes are free, and you'll be able to take away anything you do if you bring a USB stick!
More details soon...
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