Lets Make Things! - Using Technology to Innovate in STEM (5 of 5): Games Design (#Kodu #Scratch #ProjectSpark) This is part of a series of posts that talks about a few things that schools could invest in to improve and enhance STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math’s) Education. They each contribute to the bigger picture of making schools challenging, fun, exciting and desirable places to be. In this short post I want to talk a little bit about introducing young people to computer coding and programming with a specific focus on computer games design. Before I do that I want to go back and re-visit some of the history of IVT and Computing in UK Schools. ICT vs. Computing
What Is Education For? We are accustomed to thinking of learning as good in and of itself. But as environmental educator David Orr reminds us, our education up till now has in some ways created a monster. This essay is adapted from his commencement address to the graduating class of 1990 at Arkansas College. It prompted many in our office to wonder why such speeches are made at the end, rather than the beginning, of the collegiate experience. David Orr is the founder of the Meadowcreek Project, an environmental education center in Fox, AR, and is currently on the faculty of Oberlin College in Ohio. Reprinted from Ocean Arks International’s excellent quarterly tabloid Annals of Earth, Vol.
Chinese E-Commerce Firms Target Global Sales through Localization - You often read about website and e-commerce localization targetting emerging markets outside of the US and Europe. As their own market is reaching saturation point, Chinese companies are now expanding their scope and looking global. In this post we explore how Chinese e-commerce websites are approaching foreign online markets. Experts Weigh in on K-12 Coding & CS Resources A big city superintendent called last week and asked for recommendations for K-12 resources for teaching coding and computer science so we reached out to some folks in the know. Here’s a summary of what we learned: Hadi Partovi is CEO of Code.org. As reported in May, he thinks Teaching kids to code is an economic and social justice issue. His site is packed with stats that make the case for coding–a good place to start.
The Simple Logic » Blog Archive » You Say You Want An Education? With the recent announcement of 17 new schools participating in the massive open online course (MOOC) site Coursera.org, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to see if it was possible to design a reasonable computer science curriculum using just Coursera courses, where “reasonable” is a curriculum that roughly mirrors the coursework required for a four-year university computer science degree. I’ve looked over all of the available Coursera courses as of September 21st, 2012, and created a four-year curriculum. I’ve tried to follow the curricula suggested by real world colleges; in particular I’ve loosely based the approach on MIT’s course 6 curriculum (specifically, 6-3). Rakuten Taiwan launches visual search for fashion e-commerce E-commerce giant Rakuten has launched a visual search service on its Taiwan site to allow its shoppers to use images to find what they are looking for. This allows users to search by uploading photographs of people on the streets or their favorite celebrities, which will generate matches and close recommendations. The feature is available on two sites: www.oshare.com.tw and www.rakuten.com.tw/event/funsearch. According to Toru Shimada, senior executive officer and CEO of Rakuten Asia, it is the first to roll out such a feature in Taiwan and will be offering the service to other parts of Asia. The Fashion Finder application is powered by startup ViSenze, using technology from the NUS-Tsinghua Extreme Search Centre (NExT)--a partnership between National University of Singapore (NUS) and Tsinghua University of China.
Future Developers: Why Kids Should Learn the Basics of Code Do you remember learning how to read? You might recall the simple wonder of interpreting something that had previously just been so many meaningless symbols on the page, the amazement you felt when you realized that these words – previously mysterious – were now unlocked to you. That’s the same experience that advocates of teaching coding skills to children are advocating, and it’s definitely one worth pursuing.
Liberate Education: How to Start a Free School This how-to guide was written for Shareable by organizers (especially Aaron Rosenblum) from EXCOtc, a collective of Experimental Colleges in the Twin Cities of Minnesota that share a visions of a better world, offering free and open classes, and building a community around education for social change. EXCO-TC began eight years ago and is now made up of three collaborating local organizing chapters: Macalester/St. Paul, the U of M, and the Academia Communitaria.
5 New SEO Strategies You Should Be Aware Of [Sponsored Post: This post is brought to you by Rich Gorman and you can follow him on Twitter @RichAGorman] Here are a few new SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies that Rich Gorman sent me that you should use to build your online presence and optimize it for Google: 1. Co-Citation Co-citation, as Rich Gorman explained to me, refers to virtual link building without actual links. Co-citation does not require an actual link to the website.
'Hakitzu' Teaches Kids to Code With Robot Warriors Complete with battling robots, challenging arenas and a little bit of friendly competition, Kuato Studio's new game seeks to both entertain and educate as it teaches children how to code. Hakitzu: Code of the Warrior, a strategy game, prompts players to type basic JavaScript to control characters. The free iPad app pits two robots against each other in a battle arena, where each user takes turns coding increasingly complex instructions to move and use weapons. No previous knowledge of programming is necessary and the in-game keyboard is customized with commonly used keys.
Top 12 free open source ecommerce platforms Sometimes you choose the wrong ecommerce platform for your business. What do you do if you’re stuck with a platform which doesn’t help with your company’s success? There are many ecommerce platforms in the market. Some are free platforms and some are paid platforms. The main factors which you have to consider while choosing ecommerce platform is the price, useful functions, user friendly and with strong merchandising tools. To make it easy for you, I’ve listed the top 12 free open source ecommerce platforms:
5 Great Tools to Teach Coding Every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. Coding teaches you how to think. Below are resources for kids (and adults) to learn more about the exciting world of coding! Scratch - Developed by MIT, Scratch is one of the best coding sites out there.