For which they need to know that it exists, and be exposed to it at a basic level.
I don't believe that advanced math or things such as this should be mandatory. It seems like a complete waste of time to me (since many people aren't likely to ever use it).
1) Equating the moving of a few things round a screen in an educational language with "advanced math" is just flat-out wrong.
2) Most people will never use physics, chemistry, biology, foreign languages or anything else in their McJob, why don't we just leave them all pig ignorant? So much easier.
Then that's one less trivial task that humans have to do and one step closer to automated robo-utopia!
Oh alright, for now you're right, it could do someone out of a job. I don't see that as a bad thing in terms of human development but for that individual it's not good. OTOH, do you believe we should be creating busywork for people that could be done faster and more reliably by a machine?
It's only been tried 20 million times in the last two or three decades, and none of the attempts so far seem to be better than the traditional method. So before we try your awesome new style on serious numbers of kids, can we collect some data on outcomes?
I'm only half being sarcastic here - there probably are better ways, but all I hear about from friends and relatives in the school system is that they have resulted in less learning and more disruption.
I also went to a (minor but) well respected private school in the 90's... there are a few of us about it seems!
Our ICT was taught by a Mrs Kettle (IIRC?) who didn't do much else. She may have been admin staff or a secretary. It was grindingly dull and didn't teach me a thing about programming or computers or... well anything apart from that you could write documents on a computer, which I already knew.
Somehow I never connected it to programming my C64 in my younger years, or programming my graphics calculator, or anything. I didn't really even know that software was a thing you could do as a career. Hell, probably didn't even really know what software was other than games that came on disks you could copy...
Maybe it's the traditional aspect of the schools that we went to that led them to ignore proper computer education. I have a fine GCSE in Latin, mind!
"So do you think that children just magically know how to open a document in word and change a font? "
Clearly you've not been through the UK education system, in which Opening a document in word and changing the font could be the entire curriculum for a year's IT course.
No, I think that children need to be told that programming is a thing, have it demonstrated to them that it's not necessarily that hard to get started, and that you can do more with all these fabulous technological devices than receive them, press buttons and consume media.
The relationship between learning how to use Powerpoint and writing computer programs is approximately the same as that between knowing how to read and write and writing a poem or short story.
Well it's true that maths teachers are in short supply, but proper programming knowledge can no more be faked than the maths stuff. And no less - you could get a numpty with a script to teach maths to younger kids too.
Meh, you raise some good points, I think I raise others. We'll probably just have to wait and see, but I have no great hopes for the English educational systems to do it well either.
As much as I approve of the educational changes, it is rather advantageous that the profession be thought of as wizardry, it keeps the numbers low and the money flowing!
Well my friend who does the maths teaching, despite degrees in Mech Eng and Comp Sci (and now a PGCE as well) just didn't really get on in the corporate world. Teaching is the family business (his folks were teachers at our school), he got good grades when he was at school, good degrees and he seems to enjoy it... Economics don't seem to figure too much in his life-decision making thoughts.
You and I may not hang up our developers hats, and he may not have a huge amount of commercial programming experience, but neither of those things mean kids (in at least that school) couldn't get a good intro to programming.
When I was at school the chemistry teacher was just starting to investigate RASMOL and various computer tools, and admitted to having done a bit of fortran in the past. I also know maths teachers now who have an engineering and computer science background. Maybe this is semi-common?
The computing teacher at our school, OTOH, she knew how to make words curve around a circle and how to pick a fill colour in some DTP package on an Archimedes. Thrilling....
Except these things have such a huge presence and impact on the modern world that a mandatory intro to understanding and programming them is a damn good idea.
Besides which, computer science is not necessarily vocational, it's also an academic and theoretical science.
"You can't MAKE a great programmer any more than you can MAKE a great engineer, mechanic, etc?"
No, but you can make sure they get exposed to it, like we do with sciences, languages and literature.
Those with a true passion for it will actively seek it out
And this is where you fail. They may know nothing about it.
Besides which, if you read TFA you'd find out this isn't several years course resulting in exams, just a replacement to the current braindead "Here is how to open a document in word, here is how to change a font" bullcrap that's passed off as "Computer Education" in British schools at present.
Examined courses (GCSE at 14-16, A-Level at 16-18) will still be optional. If I'd known about programming (other than C64 Basic) when I was 12 I'd have been all over that, as it was I didn't really start until university at 18. This is a very, very good thing.
TBH I have no idea what Rasterman's contribution was, but the software on the Freerunner was pretty horrific. That said the main problem was management IMHO - allowing multiple, continuous redesigning of the base platform instead of making a plan and sticking to it.
"Good morning Joe. Thanks for coming in for an interview. Now, let's take a look at your documentation. Ah, I see you frequent bars, a lot it seems. I see that at least two of your close friends are drug users; one may even be dealing. Are you a drug user? There are at least two women linked to you who've complained you're a potentially violent individual. One person appears to be displaying stolen goods." "But I don't know that guy!" "He says he knows you."
"Good by Mr Interviewer, I'd never work for people like you".
But then I don't work in countries that allow drug tests (no, I wouldn't fail) or other intrusive measures either. Not every place has given up all its rights to the almighty corporation you know.
Oh nonsense. Not everyone has 7 billion facebook friends. Some of us have 20 or 30, and see them all as often as possible given they're now spread all over the planet.
It's a great way to stay relevant to each others lives and keep friendships up to date.
Not a very grown up way of expressing it perhaps, but I couldn't agree more with the feeling behind it.
I'm in no going to claim I'm way proud of everything I've ever done, but neither am I going to live my life pretending to be someone else.
I've probably ruled myself out of politics by now, but I did that through my actions (I had the damned cheek to enjoy myself when I was young, law and social/sexual mores be damned) not through social media. What's going to be really interesting in the light of social media is the next generation of politicians.
Is society going to get over it's retarded habit of only electing those who cannot be shamed with their pasts because they have never lived? Will we start to realise everyone has a past, everyone is human? Or will we just elect the greyest, most inhuman monsters who spent their entire lives from birth onwards obsessively worrying about image control?
Who they intended to share it with and who it is actually shared with are not necessarily the same.
In the case of twitter, which is mentioned alongside FB in the article, you are pretty explicitly just shouting stuff to the world.
A Facebook user may not realize the implications of posting something to a public page or a public profile, and in the process share more about themselves or their actions than they intended.
This is true, but no reason to say everyone using FB or twitter is part of the problem of reduced privacy, when much of what is made public is made deliberately so, Quite a lot of folks (myself included) do not assume that anything posted there at any privacy levels secret from anyone more tech savvy than my mom, and don't share anything much of consequence as a result.
"Maybe you do..."
Yes I do.
but it's unreasonable of you to expect the masses to know all of the possible ways a simple click on Facebook can be used against you.
It's also highly unreasonable to tell anyone that uses facebook that they are part of the problem until they stop using it.
As for the big brother fetish? It is always something to watch for, OTOH there are certain writers who sound like they're knocking one out under the table when they write about it....
No, but you can work around them, and sue for wrongful dismissal.
I'm not for a moment advocating total transparency, but I think that if these judgemental killjoys *could* see everything that was going on in the world, just how many people do actually drink, take drugs, stay out late, sleep around etc etc, without society falling down around them, they might have to confront their own small mindedness and hypocrisy.
This is just wishful thinking on my part though, it's more likely the idiot moral crusaders would just use it as more ammo, because we all know they really care about behavioural control, not safety, not liberty, not happiness.
And don't forget about that teacher that was fired because of a picture of her online drinking out of a red plastic cup, lord knows what she was actually drinking, but she was ultimately fired because of the picture.
Everyone who uses Facebook, Twitter and the like shares the blame for the serious and ongoing global erosion of privacy enabled by the internet, he said.
Yes, people sharing information and thoughts freely is a terrible threat to privacy.
Oh wait, no, the other thing - they (I should say 'we' as a facebook user) deliberately share this info and WANT to make it public.
Moglen comes across as a complete dick in that interview, and quite hysterical, with a bit of a big-brother fetish. Much like Doctorow (also mentioned in TFA) who seems to revel in his little-brother fantasies entirely too much.
Slashdot Mirror
For which they need to know that it exists, and be exposed to it at a basic level.
1) Equating the moving of a few things round a screen in an educational language with "advanced math" is just flat-out wrong.
2) Most people will never use physics, chemistry, biology, foreign languages or anything else in their McJob, why don't we just leave them all pig ignorant? So much easier.
Then that's one less trivial task that humans have to do and one step closer to automated robo-utopia!
Oh alright, for now you're right, it could do someone out of a job. I don't see that as a bad thing in terms of human development but for that individual it's not good. OTOH, do you believe we should be creating busywork for people that could be done faster and more reliably by a machine?
Great idea, change the classroom.
It's only been tried 20 million times in the last two or three decades, and none of the attempts so far seem to be better than the traditional method. So before we try your awesome new style on serious numbers of kids, can we collect some data on outcomes?
I'm only half being sarcastic here - there probably are better ways, but all I hear about from friends and relatives in the school system is that they have resulted in less learning and more disruption.
I also went to a (minor but) well respected private school in the 90's... there are a few of us about it seems!
Our ICT was taught by a Mrs Kettle (IIRC?) who didn't do much else. She may have been admin staff or a secretary. It was grindingly dull and didn't teach me a thing about programming or computers or... well anything apart from that you could write documents on a computer, which I already knew.
Somehow I never connected it to programming my C64 in my younger years, or programming my graphics calculator, or anything. I didn't really even know that software was a thing you could do as a career. Hell, probably didn't even really know what software was other than games that came on disks you could copy...
Maybe it's the traditional aspect of the schools that we went to that led them to ignore proper computer education. I have a fine GCSE in Latin, mind!
Clearly you've not been through the UK education system, in which Opening a document in word and changing the font could be the entire curriculum for a year's IT course.
No, I think that children need to be told that programming is a thing, have it demonstrated to them that it's not necessarily that hard to get started, and that you can do more with all these fabulous technological devices than receive them, press buttons and consume media.
Yup, all of which were mandatory in my education.
The landlord says the rent is late, you may have to litigate
Don't worry, Beeeeeeeee Happy....
Well it's true that maths teachers are in short supply, but proper programming knowledge can no more be faked than the maths stuff. And no less - you could get a numpty with a script to teach maths to younger kids too.
Meh, you raise some good points, I think I raise others. We'll probably just have to wait and see, but I have no great hopes for the English educational systems to do it well either.
As much as I approve of the educational changes, it is rather advantageous that the profession be thought of as wizardry, it keeps the numbers low and the money flowing!
Well my friend who does the maths teaching, despite degrees in Mech Eng and Comp Sci (and now a PGCE as well) just didn't really get on in the corporate world. Teaching is the family business (his folks were teachers at our school), he got good grades when he was at school, good degrees and he seems to enjoy it... Economics don't seem to figure too much in his life-decision making thoughts.
You and I may not hang up our developers hats, and he may not have a huge amount of commercial programming experience, but neither of those things mean kids (in at least that school) couldn't get a good intro to programming.
When I was at school the chemistry teacher was just starting to investigate RASMOL and various computer tools, and admitted to having done a bit of fortran in the past. I also know maths teachers now who have an engineering and computer science background. Maybe this is semi-common?
The computing teacher at our school, OTOH, she knew how to make words curve around a circle and how to pick a fill colour in some DTP package on an Archimedes. Thrilling....
Except these things have such a huge presence and impact on the modern world that a mandatory intro to understanding and programming them is a damn good idea.
Besides which, computer science is not necessarily vocational, it's also an academic and theoretical science.
No, but you can make sure they get exposed to it, like we do with sciences, languages and literature.
And this is where you fail. They may know nothing about it.
Besides which, if you read TFA you'd find out this isn't several years course resulting in exams, just a replacement to the current braindead "Here is how to open a document in word, here is how to change a font" bullcrap that's passed off as "Computer Education" in British schools at present.
Examined courses (GCSE at 14-16, A-Level at 16-18) will still be optional. If I'd known about programming (other than C64 Basic) when I was 12 I'd have been all over that, as it was I didn't really start until university at 18. This is a very, very good thing.
Desktop linux perhaps. Linux is a huge presence in the server room, and practically owns the embedded/consumer electronics space.
TBH I have no idea what Rasterman's contribution was, but the software on the Freerunner was pretty horrific. That said the main problem was management IMHO - allowing multiple, continuous redesigning of the base platform instead of making a plan and sticking to it.
Whilst I'm sure he's awesome, let's never forget that Rasterman was heavily involved in OpenMoko, and look how well that went....
5 more years baby, and then I'm gonna be all over that!
Or not, 'cos you know .... creepy.
"Good by Mr Interviewer, I'd never work for people like you".
But then I don't work in countries that allow drug tests (no, I wouldn't fail) or other intrusive measures either. Not every place has given up all its rights to the almighty corporation you know.
There's a difference somewhere between having some fun in your youth and being a total (47 year old, public-office holding) sleazeball!
I may have done some things in my time, but sending pictures of my cock to women 20 years my junior wasn't one of them....
Then for many Gmail is a far greater privacy threat than facebook.
Oh nonsense. Not everyone has 7 billion facebook friends. Some of us have 20 or 30, and see them all as often as possible given they're now spread all over the planet.
It's a great way to stay relevant to each others lives and keep friendships up to date.
xkcd 137 - fuck that shit
Not a very grown up way of expressing it perhaps, but I couldn't agree more with the feeling behind it.
I'm in no going to claim I'm way proud of everything I've ever done, but neither am I going to live my life pretending to be someone else.
I've probably ruled myself out of politics by now, but I did that through my actions (I had the damned cheek to enjoy myself when I was young, law and social/sexual mores be damned) not through social media. What's going to be really interesting in the light of social media is the next generation of politicians.
Is society going to get over it's retarded habit of only electing those who cannot be shamed with their pasts because they have never lived? Will we start to realise everyone has a past, everyone is human? Or will we just elect the greyest, most inhuman monsters who spent their entire lives from birth onwards obsessively worrying about image control?
If it's the latter then god help us all.
In the case of twitter, which is mentioned alongside FB in the article, you are pretty explicitly just shouting stuff to the world.
This is true, but no reason to say everyone using FB or twitter is part of the problem of reduced privacy, when much of what is made public is made deliberately so, Quite a lot of folks (myself included) do not assume that anything posted there at any privacy levels secret from anyone more tech savvy than my mom, and don't share anything much of consequence as a result.
Yes I do.
It's also highly unreasonable to tell anyone that uses facebook that they are part of the problem until they stop using it.
As for the big brother fetish? It is always something to watch for, OTOH there are certain writers who sound like they're knocking one out under the table when they write about it....
No, but you can work around them, and sue for wrongful dismissal.
I'm not for a moment advocating total transparency, but I think that if these judgemental killjoys *could* see everything that was going on in the world, just how many people do actually drink, take drugs, stay out late, sleep around etc etc, without society falling down around them, they might have to confront their own small mindedness and hypocrisy.
This is just wishful thinking on my part though, it's more likely the idiot moral crusaders would just use it as more ammo, because we all know they really care about behavioural control, not safety, not liberty, not happiness.
Oops, went on a rant...
The problem here is assholes, not social media.
Oh what bullshit, seriously.
Yes, people sharing information and thoughts freely is a terrible threat to privacy.
Oh wait, no, the other thing - they (I should say 'we' as a facebook user) deliberately share this info and WANT to make it public.
Moglen comes across as a complete dick in that interview, and quite hysterical, with a bit of a big-brother fetish. Much like Doctorow (also mentioned in TFA) who seems to revel in his little-brother fantasies entirely too much.
Is that the EE's equivalent of "parallel computing will never take off, it's just too hard for developers" that gets my programming goat so much?