programming awards
A while ago on the National Planning Committee for an ACEC 1997 conference held in Brisbane, I had the good fortune to work with Margaret Lloyd at QUT. I was interested to read of the following competition that she has just posted onto the Internet for students to design, build and race land yachts. I had the chance to briefly meet up with her at the ACEC2006 conference.
CSIRO do something very similar with their Bronze, Silver and Gold CREST awards to inspire creativity. When I launched this at Glen Wavlerley SC over a decade ago, the projects motivated many kids to take up a career in science / technology. I recall that former ECAWA president and leading technology educator, Mark Webber had the idea of building and racing cars made from CDROM motors and junk that he called Falcon Fliers. Students negotiate a project, given a swag of ideas and resources, scope and guidance to help realise their work.
On the long drive back from the Benella GameMaker workshop with Maggie I was thinking though the seed of an idea. Later that weekend the ASISTM cluster has released me to run something on a small scale this week. I would like to try it again during ICT week in June.
I now think that the state competition model that we should be working towards should involve a six hour programming boot-camp incorporating web2 elements of cooperation and collaboration with a constructionist flavor of just in time learning. It will require little management overhead to organise or buckets of funding to run. It can work regardless of the programming language used, gender of the team members or their programming experience.
If the journey is more important than the destination, then this competition vehicle could best help teachers to organise and showcase what students can do by working together to program a small game, solve a simple problem that can help the us make the world a better place to live in. If we hold it on a specific competition day, there is no reason why we a chat room / forum / skypecast / online review system could not be set up in partnership with a group like OSV where some programmers can be to be on hand for advice, reviews or suggestions.
All we need to do in advance is prepare a planning kit, resource guide and audit sheet, something we can even sell on with the certificates to recover some of our costs. The projects are later audited by the teachers who check the things done by the team against a a criteria sheet (something I did with the crest awards) then later issue certificate. Whilst this will mean dropping the key competitive thrust of our current programming award, it can still lend itself to a team spirit of innovation and creativity where any school team that participates can become winners.
I welcome your feedback.
CSIRO do something very similar with their Bronze, Silver and Gold CREST awards to inspire creativity. When I launched this at Glen Wavlerley SC over a decade ago, the projects motivated many kids to take up a career in science / technology. I recall that former ECAWA president and leading technology educator, Mark Webber had the idea of building and racing cars made from CDROM motors and junk that he called Falcon Fliers. Students negotiate a project, given a swag of ideas and resources, scope and guidance to help realise their work.
On the long drive back from the Benella GameMaker workshop with Maggie I was thinking though the seed of an idea. Later that weekend the ASISTM cluster has released me to run something on a small scale this week. I would like to try it again during ICT week in June.
I now think that the state competition model that we should be working towards should involve a six hour programming boot-camp incorporating web2 elements of cooperation and collaboration with a constructionist flavor of just in time learning. It will require little management overhead to organise or buckets of funding to run. It can work regardless of the programming language used, gender of the team members or their programming experience.
If the journey is more important than the destination, then this competition vehicle could best help teachers to organise and showcase what students can do by working together to program a small game, solve a simple problem that can help the us make the world a better place to live in. If we hold it on a specific competition day, there is no reason why we a chat room / forum / skypecast / online review system could not be set up in partnership with a group like OSV where some programmers can be to be on hand for advice, reviews or suggestions.
All we need to do in advance is prepare a planning kit, resource guide and audit sheet, something we can even sell on with the certificates to recover some of our costs. The projects are later audited by the teachers who check the things done by the team against a a criteria sheet (something I did with the crest awards) then later issue certificate. Whilst this will mean dropping the key competitive thrust of our current programming award, it can still lend itself to a team spirit of innovation and creativity where any school team that participates can become winners.
I welcome your feedback.