Code.org, a non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education, launched and shared a video on YouTube that, if you’re concerned about education, or are looking for inspiration, is a a must-watch.
YouTube: Code.org: What Most Schools Don’t Teach – Short Film
Jon Udell wrote a short piece that resonated with me on taking a principle from software engineering and applying it to discourse and relationships: “Check your assumptions”.
He takes the idea that when debugging, you should:
Focus on understanding why the program is doing what it’s doing, rather than why it’s not doing what you wanted it to.
And translating that to:
Focus on understanding why your spouse or child or friend or political adversary is doing what he or she is doing, rather than why he or she is not doing what you wanted him or her to.
That flips your behavior from one that is trying to modify someone else’s behavior to someone that is listening actively.
Pretty profound.
What other examples of this to think about?
Boing Boing posts a TEDx talk from Mitch Resnick, of the MIT Media Lab, and creator of Scratch, and a good discussion ensued: “Kids should learn programming as well as reading and writing”. Make sure to watch the talk as well: “Reading, Writing, and Programming: Mitch Resnick at TEDxBeaconStreet”
NPR.org: “How to build a news app that never goes down and costs you practically nothing”.
Python (Flask, Fabric, Jinja) and Amazon EC2. A nice walk through with code for contribution and reuse.
Discovery News: Meet the Youngest Video Game Programmer:
A bright young programmer from Philadelphia recently unveiled a video game involving ballerinas, jewels and vampires — sure to be a hit with young girls. The programmer herself also happens to be seven years old.
Zora Ball, a first grader at the Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School in Philadelphia, created the video game in a class focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics led by Tariq Al-Nasir, who heads the STEMnasium Learning Academy.
Checkout Zora’s story at Discovery News.