Many ofmyfriends know that I like to get my geek on. Spending hours at a time look at frustrating lines of code wondering how I can get something to work. When I grew up my school had a few BBC micro computors, most of the lessons where spent with the teacher trying to get all the computors to load the relevant program. No sooner had we done this and the bell seemed to ring.
Over the past year I have been learning PHP and SQL to develop a web based application. I am by no stretch of the imagination a programmer though. In learning this basic language I recently started wondering how we can use computors more in delivering coaching in climbing, but more importantly if and how we can use ICT in places like Outdoor Education through LEA centres.
I am on the waiting list for a device call RaspberryPi. For those that don’t know what it is. The computor was designed by Cambridge University who were disappointed with the level of programming skills that students were turning up with. As such they design a system that would run linux operating system, and a cut down computor specifically aimed at programming. As these devices cost £25, the demand is high, but there is a vacuum in the way that they could be used in school to teach software programming or other cross curicular development.
I saw a post on Facebook about a proposed event in Sheffield this september, they are interested in getting ideas from the front line of teaching, as to what type of projects the system could be used for and what lesons plans are out there already.
I would really like to bring to any teacher or techies attention this conference to see whether it is of interest to you. Saul who seems to be one of the people running with this idea has more details over on his blog, Brain Dump. I don’t know him but his blog seems like it is an interesting read.
I hope it goes well!