The Startup Toolkit profiles Aeir and profiles the person behind it, Joseph Hill. It is an inspiring story: “A man, a mop, a year, and an app – Joseph Hill on Aeir Talk”.
Category Archives: Communications, Connection, Internet, Web, Media
How Firefly fans won a fight for free speech on a campus
Steve Jobs: “computer science is a liberal art, it’s something everyone should know how to use, at least, and harness in their life”
“Quotes from Steve Jobs Lost Interview”:
“Learning to program teaches you how to think. Computer science is a liberal art.”
NPR.org: “Steve Jobs: ‘Computer Science Is A Liberal Art'”:
“In my perspective … science and computer science is a liberal art, it’s something everyone should know how to use, at least, and harness in their life. It’s not something that should be relegated to 5 percent of the population over in the corner. It’s something that everybody should be exposed to and everyone should have mastery of to some extent, and that’s how we viewed computation and these computation devices”
Related:
YouTube: WGBH: “Steve Jobs 1990 Lost Interview Part 1”:
Reddit.com: “Want: a non-technical description of CS”
Programming, along with Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic – start NOW
Matt Ruzicka wonders what could have happened if his school was visited by someone who shared how programming has less to do with something he could learn in college, and more to do with what he was actually doing in class in his post “School, Math, and Code”. (via “Life and Code”)
More than a few of us from CIM are active in our communities, including my former manager Aaron Held, who received this note from a thankful student who needs more support from others.
Knowledge of programming, not the use of specific kinds of software (word processors for example), is a necessary part of literacy today.
Related:
Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python
Google: Exploring Computational Thinking
Computer Programming for Everybody
Knowing and Doing: “Programming for Everyone — Really?”
MediaShift: Aran Levasseur: “Learning in a Digital Age: Teaching a Different Kind of Literacy”
Change By Us Philly in Beta: civic media & software
“Change by Us Philly” recently launched in beta, part of the “Change By Us” effort started by “CEOs for Cities”, “Local Projects” and “Code for America” and is funded by The Knight Foundation and The Rockerfeller Foundation. It describes itself (and lives up to it!) as “an online marketplace for community projects that allows you to share ideas for making the city better, and to turn those ideas into projects that have real impact. From tools to network and manage events to helping you connect with local resources, the site supports a number of ways to get involved.” Check out the ideas posted, get involved in making one happen, or share your own.
For more on getting involved with the site, check out OAPCivicFusion on Google Groups.
Programming, Math, and Computational Thinking: on education
Actually, this post will feature a few reads and resources for you that are part of a theme – the need to change K-12 education to face the realities of today and tomorrow, instead of preparing them for a world that has already turned. To do so will require children to gain a working understanding of the use of, and creation of, software. This is as important today as reading, writing and mathematics and it helps provide invaluable tools to build on, and strengthen, those foundational parts of children’s education.
Google Edu serves a terrific resource for educators and students that brings together many of these concepts – “Exploring Computational Thinking”. The lesson plan includes Python exercises that help illustrate computational thinking while strengthening math skills.
Why this is important
Over 10 years ago Lawrence Lessig exclaimed, “The Code Is the Law”, and in a series of articles, presentations, and an influential book spread the idea among the digerati, but interestingly enough, those outside of technology didn’t adopt the idea as a truism.
Douglas Rushkoff recently released his most recent book, “Programed or be Programmed” that took the concept further and declared a course of action for future educators.
Kevin Slavin: Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world:
YouTube: “TED: Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers”:
Chris Poole: “It is not who you share WITH, it is who you share AS”: on identity
Visualizing the news: on storytelling
Matthew Ericson of the New York Times (and former co-worker of mine) put together slides of his recent presentation at AIGA Pivot. The presentation must have rocked because the slide deck, while short on details, is rich in thought provoking: PDF.
For a recent example from his team, check out today’s interactive on the Euro debt crisis.
The Matrix and its influences: on storytelling
Rob Wilson’s project releases its latest, this time on The Matrix, showing its influences inline, including a snippet of the 4th Doctor in “The Deadly Assassin”:
Everything Is A Remix: THE MATRIX from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.
Impermanence and Software Design: on systems
When you’re building software, it is probably best to look at things half-Buddhist. Kent Beck writes about building software that won’t be around longer than him in a recent Facebook note:
…nothing I am doing now with software will remain in a hundred years. Indeed, there was a time not long ago when the only software I had ever written that was still running was JUnit. Thousands of programs started, and my work was in danger of becoming extinct.
I could try to achieve timelessness in my designs and encourage others to do the same, but in the end nothing I program will outlive me. It would be easy to despair over this, to go into my shell and settle for “good enough”. To do so would be to ignore both the immediate impact of my work, used by hundreds of millions of people today (one of the great things about working at Facebook), and the second order effects of my work on the lives and attitudes of others. No, my programs won’t be here in a century, but my work still matters.
Related:
Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros: “The Pattern Technology of Christopher Alexander”: “We have to remember that software engineers, by nature of their work, have a big problem. Their job is not to solve problems for computers, but for human beings; the computers are only tools in that process.”
Case Statement: “Articulate Coding” – his first post – a good one – keep it up!
InfoQ: Kent Beck: “Responsive Design” 1hr Presentation. Worth it!