Here’s an article about computer programming boot camps. Marketable job skills are an important thing. Being an educated person who can understand systems, solve problems, and make ethical choices is also a good thing. These two types of education are complementary, but one does not guarantee the other. Corporations are interested in skills because they are trying to exploit some microscopic niche in the economy to make a profit. And that is where most skills apply – in those microscopic niches. When you are exploiting a microscopic niche, you are not thinking about consequences outside your niche. So if that is the only thing we do, it will eventually be possible for highly skilled, highly intelligent, well intentioned people to collectively manage to run our civilization into the ground.
Tag Archives: education
Scratch
“Scratch” is another programming language supposedly aimed at children.
Scratch Overview from ScratchEd on Vimeo.
If you watch the TED talk in the first link, there is an analogy I like – just because you use technology created by others (web browsing, texting, etc.) doesn’t make you fully literate in that technology. It is akin to being able to read but not able to write.
Loco Robo
kids…robots…good stuff
LocoRobo – Master Programming Through Robotics from Loco Robo on Vimeo.
This also reminded me of Computer Science Unplugged, which is about teaching kids computer science concepts without actually turning on a computer.
more on NetLogo
Here is a video on Youtube with more information on the agent-based modeling system Netlogo. I am intrigued by the claim, even though it is such a cliche, that even a child can use it.