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On 24/04/12 21:42, Rob Beard wrote: > Hi folks, > > I was reading an article on The Register earlier about programming > (it's kind of an article about Rory Cellan-Jones doing a 1 day HTML > course) and there was a mention of the Computing at School working group. > > Now from what I understand the group aims to promote teaching > computing (rather than the glorified CLAIT and ECDL they have at the > moment) in schools. If I understand correctly the group has members > from education and business including members of the British Computing > Society. > > They have regional hubs which is aimed at ICT and Computing teachers > and those interested in encouraging more computing in schools at > Primary and Secondary level. Looking at the web site it seems that > the hubs are county wide (there is mention of one for Oxfordshire and > one for Kent). > > I didn't see anything for Devon or Cornwall and I thought maybe it > might be something that as a LUG, or even just some of us from the LUG > who are interested could look at getting involved with and maybe look > into setting up a Devon & Cornwall hub? > > I thought I'd mention it anyway especially since there are a couple of > folks on the LUG who are involved with education anyway (Mark, Grant, > erm... sorry can't remember the names of the other folks, it slips my > mind). Anyway, I'm sure there are a couple of us who aren't involved > with education but would still be interested especially if we have > kids around school ages (my daughters for instance are in both Primary > and Secondary schools and I cringe when they tell me some of the > things that they do in ICT lessons). > > So, just thought I'd mention it and see what interest there is? > > Rob > > P.S. Apologies if this has come through twice, I sent it originally > but had mis-configured Thunderbird so it was not adding my e-mail > address correctly :-s > I have something similar in mind for my computer group only its more peer support, (when we were kids we were self taught, speccy + book = coding) so why kids can't do the same with online resources e.g books / websites etc on say python. What was nice when we were kids is that we found someone else with the same computer and could ask for help, ok these days we have the internet and we can go find people (however that presents known risks to children) with my group you know the person in the group is of similar age, so it is safer and if they decide to swap phone / email /facebook details then the know that it's with a person of similar age. (re assures responsible parents too) frommy stand point if 1 person gets some help from someone else who they met at the group, then the group has achieved what it set out to do. If I simply give a young person a copy of say kidsruby and suggest they have a go, and they come back inspired then it has done the same. I have told this story before, however it highlights where things can go wrong,. When I was at college we did some programming, I got a tip off what we were doing and wrote a search program properly in GW basic at home using a book with a program in and simply converted it from the book to gwbasic, the teacher sat us all down with gw basic and promptly gave us a listing in bbc basic, i just fired up my program and me and the lad I was working with were playing with that, the teachers reaction was it wasn't planned properly, my reaction was something like at least it worked, ( i was 17 at the time) (it shut the teacher up, lol) kids / young people will be ahead of adults, and if motivated will learn out of school anway, my group will hopefully bring young programmers together. there are enough languages / resources out there now to make this possible. if this happens now, the kids will do like i did, make that teacher look very very stupid indeed and that teacher will instantly lose all respect and find it very hard to get that back. nb used python as a example of a language, but if we get developers together things happen, look at lug meets we discuss problems and fix things, or come up with something that is useful to others, we don't need people to organised that, we just get on with it. there is kidsruby OS which is a custom ubuntu iso, but there are many others, designed to get kids programming. this article may be interesting reading (probably posted before) http://inventwithpython.com/blog/2012/03/03/nobody-wants-to-learn-how-to-program/ do we either a teach young people, or support them as they learn themselves. there is http://www.codeclub.org.uk/ whom i contacted and they really like what i am trying to set up there is also codingforkids -- http://codingforkids.org/wiki/Main_Page which is a forum for people running / using these groups, young people should have a say in things really, My recent mini meet post was to help set things up on netbooks, to start the ball rolling software wise, progress thus far, meeting set up for end of may for people interested (will post details for anyone here in torbay with kids) flyers / info going out to schools soon. Paul -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-sutton/36/595/911 -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq