Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Brings Its Embrace-Extend-Extinguish Game To K-12 Schools?
theodp writes: A year after it paid $2.5 billion to buy Minecraft, Microsoft has announced a partnership with Code.org that makes a Minecraft-themed introduction to programming a signature tutorial of this year's Hour of Code, which hopes to reach 200 million schoolchildren next month in what the Microsoft-funded nonprofit is billing as the largest learning event in history. "A core part of our mission to empower every person on the planet is equipping youth with computational thinking and problem-solving skills to succeed in an increasingly digital world," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a press release, which also notes that "Microsoft is gifting Windows Store credit to every educator who organizes an Hour of Code event worldwide." Of the Minecraft tutorial, Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi gushed, "Compared to what you would otherwise be doing for school, this is, like, the best thing ever."
The salaries of programmers are going to drop like a rock.
We'll have the most tech savvy people on the unemployment line.
Don't worry, Microsoft will still lobby for an increase in the H1B and L1 visa limits regardless how many millions know how to code.
Where's the embrace and extinguish?
Agile Artisans
Sure, it's going to be more fun than taking a test but Hadi must think very little of teachers to make blanket statements like the one at the end of the article.
One can teach critical thinking without any reference to computers or programming. Teach that and computers will follow like wet follows rain. Teach it using 'computers' and the kids will have no idea what they are doing.
Last time I looked Apple was constantly offering discounted iPads and apple products to lock schools and minds into the apple ecosystem.
Last time I looked Google was constantly offering discounted chromebooks and pushing schools into the google ecosystem, especially with gmail and google docs.
I'm sick and tired of the Microsoft is evil crap. Yes, 20 years ago they tried to embrace, extend and extinguish their standards over open standards to the entire internet. But they didn't win. The average consumer is not a microsoft consumer, they are a Apple or Google consumer.
So what did Microsoft do? They determined their core market was Office and Servers (through azure). Everything they've done over the past few years has been geared towards furthering those goals. Windows 10 is mostly a ploy to put those two platforms first, in the same way Google and Apple serve to put their platforms first.
But you know what's different? Microsoft is more open than they've ever been, ever. Heck, their Azure cloud service even has first rate support for running your favorite flavor of linux on their servers. They've open sourced much of their codebase for C# and have been focused on allowing their system to write code for themselves and any of their competitors.
Of course they are going to lean towards supporting their own systems and will make changes to the root of the product to enhance their other offerings. They are a for-profit corporation, just like Google and Apple. But they've been far more open and less heavy handed than those two in the last 5 years.
So this is turtle graphics, introduced with Logo, back in the late 1960s, reinvented with Minecraft.
Cool, yes. Revolutionary? Not so much.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
More headline trolling details: Amazon & iTunes credits are given to teachers too as the link above states in the freaking post timothy made. But sure, go ahead and bash microsoft for putting money into a program that is trying to teach using a tool that is extremely popular among the very population that you are targeting.
This seems ok. How will children be hurt by this? Or taxpayers? Or anyone? What's the problem?
Do we really always have to complain about everything?
is billing as the largest learning event in history.
The Apollo 11 moon landing was a far bigger learning event. It not only inspired a generation to learn more (far more than Minecraft will), but it also had huge social implications.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Hey, back in the day you could buy votes for a drink! Perhaps more effective than the $10 prizes though, is the $500,000 in prizes Code.org dangles to entice schools to get with the program(ming), or (in the past), the $750 gift codes Code.org offered to teachers who got their students to code (with $250 more for teachers of girls).
Not that it has anything to do with the Minecraft lessons being designated a signature Hour of Code tutorial, at least according to the evaluation criteria below, but Code.org's biggest donors coincidentally include Microsoft ($3M+), Ballmer Family Giving ($3M+), and Bill Gates ($1M+). And Code.org's CEO, who once reported to Satya Nadella, is coincidentally a sometimes jogging partner of Steve Ballmer, as well as the next-door neighbor of Microsoft President and Code.org Board member Brad Smith.
Hour of Code: How tutorials will be evaluated for inclusion:
Tutorials will be listed higher if they are:
high quality
designed for beginners - among students AND teachers
designed as a ~ 1 hour activity
require no sign up
require no payment
require no installation
work across many OS/device platforms, including mobile and tablets
work across multiple languages
promote learning by all demographic groups (esp. under-represented groups)
not pure HTML+CSS web design focus - (our goal is computer science, not just HTML coding)
Keeping voting GOP and soon K-12 will have a loan with X3 more H1B's and no way to pay that loan off.
At best it exposes a bit of coding to kids. At worst, it turns them off completely.
However, even writing a damn "Hello World" takes hours if a novice has to do it with some support. Much more if there is no hand holding involved. I have seen adults struggle to find the matching closing quote problem. I had to fight with a problem because I typed code in with MS-Word, which used the slanted quotes, which gave me some weird error, something along the lines of incorrect encoding.
This is the best programming book I've ever used (I'm not a professional just a 30 something who started with C at 13 dropped it, and has regretted it since). This is for Python.
If you scroll down a bit you will see a package called Swampy. Swampy = Turtle. If you do the book you will see example code that uses it. Good luck.
It's the other way around - Math and critical thinking help in programming.
I always forget the closing "
OT: When will /. allow me to edit my fucking posts? It's been like 18 years without this basic functionality.
They are teaching using Minecraft. The only thing that has to do with Microsoft is that Microsoft bought the company.
And even if there were something Microsoft API specific in this code, who cares? This is a basic introduction; it's not like they are going to spend half their school time memorizing obscure Microsoft APIs.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I bought this book for my kids and it was total mission accomplished in getting the excited about what programs can do:
Adventures in Minecraft
by David Whale, Martin O'Hanlon
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/...
that book was created in the pre-microsoft era of minecraft. I suspect it wasn't even mojang sanctioned.
they have a less than complete version of minecraft with a python API exposed. It's amazingly simple to use it so other than unzipping the file it's easy for beginners to use. Works great on a raspberry pi. What you can do is somewhat limited. mainly on the input side of only being able to know where steve is not what he's doing. But by the time you are actually wishing for more you have a great understanding of basic programming in python. So it''s a fantastic first introduction to API programming in python. Kids might want to try scratch first since it's fully self contained without the need to couple to minecraft and thus simpler. But programming in minecraft with python is a very very very engaging experience for kids.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Blame the GOP all you want, but both sides have people for and against H1Bs.
But it is much easier to demonize people if you lump them all together huh? Meanwhile Bernie blames ISIS on Climate Change, and you think the GOP are crazy ones.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Wondering how you come to the conclusion of a flooded job market. Oh right, it's the hyperbole train.
Better than giving nerds wedgies? I don't think so.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How are you coming to any other conclusion? It's Microsoft, Facebook, and their ilk, for fuck's sake. You think they're doing this out of the kindness of their hearts? You're either a shill, a troll, or absolutely retarded. It's honestly hard to tell.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
Or Amazon, Apple and Microsoft could not donate anything and not provide incentives to organizers. Or the schools can say "hey, this isn't worth it" and not participate. It's not like code.org is buying $10 from Amazon, Apple or Microsoft to give to the users. Those credits are donated to that organization as well to give to educators.
Mostly because I don't wear a tin foil hat to bed every night, unlike apparently 90% of slashdotters. I think the 'Dey Tuk Ur Jurbs' people actually have more common sense.
Hell. I wish this existed back when I was a young tyke.
Although, I would be much more interested in learning to code if I had something like that at my disposal.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
We all knew this is the kind of crap MS planned when they bought Minecraft.
Good-bye
The only people who think there is a shortage of STEM workers are the big mouths in Silicon Valley.
You know, those who get 1000 qualified applications per job posting, then whine "waaaaaaaa we have a shortage, so more H1B visas please!!!!"
You're out of touch.
You think they're doing this out of the kindness of their hearts?
Of course not, they are doing this to increase the talent pool. If the general quality of CS grads and/or job applicants is low then obviously it is in their interest to try to improve that. If they can pay somebody a lot less to do your job the same as you then perhaps you aren't as valuable as you think you are, or maybe you're just in the wrong job. Either way competition is good, it drives people to become better.
The STEM talent pool is huge! There is far more talent than there are jobs for the STEM students!
THERE IS NO TALENT SHORTAGE.
http://programmersguild.org/factsheets/2014_pg_media_fact_sheet.pdf
Roughly 400,000 of the 1.6 million BS degrees each
year are STEM - up from 320,000 just a decade ago.
These are predominately Americans and are more
than the U.S. job market can absorb:
During the past decade STEM employment increased
by only 60,000 per year - less than the number of
foreign workers entering each year.
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411562_Salzman_Science.pdf
Analysis of the flow of students up through the Science and Engineering (S&E) pipeline, when it reaches the labor market, suggests the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand: S&E occupations make up only about one-twentieth of all workers, and each year there are more than three times as many S&E four-year college graduates as S&E job openings.
http://www.epi.org/press/epi-analysis-finds-shortage-stem-workers/
Guest workers may be filling as many as half of all new IT jobs each year.
IT workers earn the same today as they did, generally, 14 years ago.
Currently, only one of every two STEM college graduates is hired into a STEM job each year.
Policies that expand the supply of guest workers will discourage U.S. students from going into STEM, and into IT in particular
1k application per posting? That's nothing. When I applied for my current job, there were over 3k applications. Nearly all applications are fluff. You do not get "1000 qualified applications per posting". Well, maybe qualified on paper.
That would be because you lack all skills that depend on independent thought.
I sense a bit of projection. Are you a shitty programmer who padded your resume?
Ah yes, the crony capitalism mantra.
"If you are good enough at your job then you have nothing to worry about"
You know, it sounds a lot like the police mantra we hear over and over again
"If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear"
The problem here is that both of them are complete bullshit. The cops just want more power to abuse you and the companies want more workers who are just good enough to do the job while being willing to accept peanuts to do it. These companies are not looking for the best of the best, they are looking for workers who will accept a low wage, work extreme hours, and be too afraid of unemployment to ever complain.
If you are convinced otherwise you are either ignorant, or just fucking stupid. So, which one are you?