"The Other Art of Computer Programming"

Anyone interested in the benefits of teaching App development through visual communication is encouraged to look at my thesis which can be downloaded by clicking here

Historical record only

This blog was updated for the purposes of the iOS group which is no longer in operation. As a result, this blog is no longer maintained. Thanks Melanie www.linkedin.com/in/melanietarr

Call for interest from ECU and CURTIN team back at John Tonkin

Hi All, David McMeekin's amazing app development team are back at John Tonkin this year teaching Swift 2. These students have been teaching app development since 2012 now with high school students and really have it down. The best thing about these guys is they have developed the most awesome moral compass going to schools they are asked to go to. These schools are all low socio economic. The year 9s in the program are exposed to app development processes and techniques that are not given anywhere else that we know of. We do ask a lot of the school students and have always expected them to develop real software that will be used in the school afterward. There is a very strange comforting feeling in the pursuit of excellence. I love the way these students have adopted a sense of the way computing is actually socially empowering and innovative for the millennial generation. \br My latest research project at ECU considers any teacher looking to educate Year 8s in computational thinking. The material won't be like other curriculums. There will be a lot of visual processing that needs to occur with the learning materials. Anyone interested in this project please contact me at mknights@our.ecu.edu.au or melanie.tarr@gmail.com for a registration form. To have access to the curriculum and materials developed from the research, Years 8s will need to complete one lesson on computational thinking. Thanks Melanie

the most beautiful curriculum in the world...

So Ive sent the last 8 months and the same document. Let's hope that process is nearing its end. Some of the prototypes from my proposal are lister below. The results from the Masters study I did with gracious cooperation between two amazing men at separate universities have confirmed what we suspected about how children (14 year olds) like to learn computer science best. Had so many positive enquiries from IT teachers at schools on being a part of these projects. Its very supportive to have the interest from schools and the Ed Department. I'm always completely blown away about the natures of these teachers and how the students best interests are predominant. Anyway enough of that...Oh while I remember, Dr David McMeekin has just got a ticket to WWDC... Am I jealous... Totally but this could not happen to a nicer person. Here are images from my presentation. These lesson prototypes were presented to the IT lecturers that teach the high school teachers. Their response:

I wish I had of learnt computer science like that!!!

More training

Got Louis back to train up our next round of kids....  Love having him here.  We have an absolutely epic year coming next year which I'm really excited about....  It's literally going to be huge!!!!

We've got to get ready....

dev world - australia 2014

Hey everyone, Speaking at DEV WORLD australia about our work. If you are in Melbourne....Come on down!

Year 9 app upgrade

The year 9s have already given us a few ideas about upgrades to the existing app. I was on my own this week so we coded for half the lesson and then did a design exercise for the rest. I'll upload some of the ideas. Whoops no wait that is "Honey" the coding chihuahua!!!