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So Te Ara is finally live, and I'm immensely proud of having been involved in the design process, primarily the development of the CSS/Javascript system, the lower level content pages and the…
So the Associate Minister of Education shoved a sawn-off tennis ball into a students mouth back in the early 80's at a Dunedin Secondary School - ye olde "mute puppet"…
Well, now the election's over, and there's not much left to do but wait til the coalition is announced (and perhaps look at some visualizations of the results), I have a bit of personal news to relay... As…
It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning…
The state of science education in New Zealand, is in dire need of a massive creative rejuvenation, but it can only occur to it's fullest once there is widespread knowledge of an irreconcilable crisis…
My Salient feature about the gender imbalance in computer science is out - Putting Women in their Place. Obviously, it's focused on the specific situation of VUW, but it should be relevant in a…
I hate to agree with grouchy old Dijkstra, but unfortunately now it's impossible to deny: BASIC is what killed my ability to be a truly great programmer. Dijkstra was right, GOTO completely rots your…
Why is one person who cares about children learning to program, if Cut Holes In Shoes And Get A Mask is anything to go by. Many people would think this is completely insane, or merely reinventing…
A fascinating chronicle of introducing the One Laptop Per Child project to a small school in Peru. One particular aspect that really jumped out at me was: On the first day, we also discovered that…
It just wouldn't be fair to ask where are the women in open source and criticize open source usability without providing some kind of summary of how we can do something about it. Humanized…
Y-Combinator has published a list of ideas they'd like to see new startups tackle. Aside from obvious criticisms (we're already well familar with Paul Graham's penchant for proselytizing certain forms…
In the last 30 years neuroscience has given us great insight into the workings of the human brain and as more information emerges, it becomes clear just how out of step with reality conventional attitudes…
After recently discussing the widely underestimated importance of visual programming, it’s great to see research like Visual Programming Environments For Kids.
‘Respecting Creativity’ encourages teachers to introduce the concept of intellectual property and the debate surrounding copyright issues to a classroom discussion.
“Just as soon as we begin to hone the ability to communicate through images it is stripped away from us.”
We can only learn through crisis and disruption to existing assumptions and patterns of knowledge.