Industry links

Tonight I went to the launch of the codeworx competition. This is a great competition to get students interested in developing an idea using a rather inexpensive device called a raspberry Pi.

Orion health has been sponsoring this now for its third year, and I must say it is getting better each year. However one issue that needs to be dealt with is the support to teachers. Just giving a device to teachers without professional development gets nowhere. Think of all these smart boards in schools that are not doing anything. Just a glorified data projector screen. It is only when you get teachers using these devices that you will get action.

How do we get teachers using these in class. One thing I hear is, let's make a club so we can do this during lunch time. Ummm, though that might be a great idea, is it sustainable. Why not part of the the teaching in the class. Getting students interested and being able to develop ideas, code, software using inexpensive technology shows potential for development later on.

The presenter did a great job of introducing ideas of how this could be used to meet the current digital technologies and technology curriculum. I know I even did a quick google search to look at the 91078 achievement standard. Though it would have been good to look at some aspects of the competition, requirements and what needs to be done to complete an entry.

But back to the idea of how to get teachers on board.
One idea is to create simple videos on what is in the box, how to connect it up and get it going?
Next would be to develop some content on how to start connecting electronics up to it.
Adding a lamp stack and create a web page that runs on the Pi
Where to get other electronics from that will get students engaged with ideas on how to connect them up and programmed.
Maybe what Kano can offer and how to download it and get it working the bs how students other forms of programming.

These are ideas I will be thinking about over the next few days.
Maybe sending the sd card to us to get Kano installed if the teacher is worried about about doing that kind of thing.

I would like to get a hold of the ideas that were presented in last years old around this to see what we can do to help get this out to more. Do the videos need to be teacher based, or student based!