Links of the day…

Children should talk more in class (BBC)

Makes sense really - and indeed this is something I do at home when I want to see if my daughter has understood something: ask her to explain it to me. So why not get pupils to explain stuff to each other?

Computing Scotland - “a portal website for information about computing and computing degrees and careers available in Scotland and wider.” Web site to promote careers in computing to pupils and students in Scotland. Including some games stuff. More below.

The Computing Scotland site appears to be the work of ‘Computing Science Inside‘, a project with similar goals based in Glasgow University. The Computing Scotland pages are reasonable if a bit short on content currently. Nice features include an article on ‘Hollywood Misconceptions’ about computers, and a Mythbuster which aims to highlight how useful and in-demand computing is:

Demand for computing graduates has doubled in the past four years. Despite this, in the same time the number of graduates has dropped by a third. The job market is larger than ever and growing. A study in the US in 2006 found that only 2-3% of jobs were going offshore – that’s less than the number of jobs being created!

Following the ‘Play’ option, then ‘Games’ (hmmm, this site needs to tidy up its navigation a little… sometimes - two menu bars and a side bar on a site this small?), there are two “games” which give you a chance to do some simple programming. The PacMan example seems very suited to beginner programmers with little additional information - very self-contained.

Nice to spot one of Fintal Culwin’s ‘Pooples’ (Pre Object Oriented Programming Learning Environments) - I’ve met him a couple of times now, and used some of his ‘learning beans’ programming resources with my own students. The PoopRat game does seem a little less obvious to me - despite the ability to ‘write’ a program without typing any code - and you might get more out of it if you check out the instructions on his Pooples page.