On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 10:33 PM, Richard Gaskin <[email protected] > wrote:
> > The Raspberry Pi is helping young people all over the world understand > that computing isn't some rarefied special thing other people make and we > merely use, but instead computing is cheap, ubiquitous, and something we > all can make. The 21st century isn't about users, it belongs to makers. > > I reckon Thomas Edison and the people at Bell Labs would argue that the 19th and 20th centuries belonged to the the makers. Leonardo might contend that it even started before then and the guy who first set fire to things when he walked out of his cave would probably suggest that it has always been the case. It won't be paradise when man is finally too apathetic to invent stuff to solve the problem's he's created ;-( Thankfully, if it comes to that, women will come to the rescue ;-) When I went to school we had to do one term of woodwork and one term of metalwork. Everyone built a wooden pencil case with their name burnt into it with a soldering iron (I can almost smell the burnt pine) and either a nail punch or a tack hammer. My children all did almost exactly the same, certainly one son ended up with a near identical wooden pencil case although the other made his from metal. One child made a metal BBQ burger flip, another a set of metal napkin rings. I, along with many many other students used our wooden pencil cases. I've always felt the tipping point for 'modern technology' is to identify something that is truly useful for the students to make. For software classes it seems all they do is learn how to use Word and Excel, there doesn't seem to be any software creation. IMO some kind of Homework/Assignments stack would probably fit the bill. A simple db stored on the schools server. Teachers have a stack that updates the db with their class homework and assignments. Students, get to make their stack that queries the db and gets their homework. The basics of query the db, filling a field with the output and some kind of Alert/Reminder function would be very easy. The beauty though would be when the student's realise that they can customise their stack; so instead of a simple dialog box that pops to tell you Page 432 of Advanced Math is due 30Apr and an OK button; you could replace that with 7 buttons, one for each day of the week, so you could specify exactly when you want to be reminded again. Guarantee some class clown will figure out that they can simply replace the 'OK" button with "Procrastinate until the night before'. Software, particularly HC Stacks use to be full of such humours dialog boxes - not so much today although error messages from Google seem to be an attempt at more human like responses. I think that's what students need to see, that they can humanise their software, they can reflect their personality. On the hardware side I'm a little partial towards Arduino myself, only because these boards are for prototyping so once you figure out all the components you don't need (like a USB port and 32 I/Os) you can make a much smaller board - wearable broach for girls, key fob size for boys. The Raspberry I see as more for those who get the bug and want something a little more advanced. Unfortunately I haven't figured out what kind of electronic knickknack every student could use; the hardware equivalent of a pencil box. But once someone clever figures it out then every student should at some stage posses a wooden pencil case, a metal BBQ burger flipper, their own Homework software and <a key bob that makes fart sounds>. <insert something far more useful> _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
