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Hive Toronto Youth Hack Jam: Changing the World through Technology

MinecraftEdu is the collaboration of a small team of educators and programmers from the United States and Finland. We are working with Mojang AB of Sweden, the creators of Minecraft, to make the game affordable and accessible to schools everywhere. We have also created a suite of tools that make it easy to unlock the power of Minecraft in YOUR classroom.

Educators have been tapping into the wildly popular online game Minecraft for its potential as a learning tool for a while now - to teach physics, math, and computer science. But until recently, the game was mostly the territory of computer science teachers, and even they were forced to use the commercial version of the online game. So a few months ago, two teachers, Santeri Koivisto and Joel Levin, decided to make the software more accessible and relevant to teachers. They joined forces to found MinecraftEdu and started offering discounted educator licenses to Minecraft.

"Python is a powerful and expressive language that has very simple syntax. If you're unsure of which programming language to learn, Python is a great choice. The language is used in a variety of disciplines: application, web, and game development. Python can do it all. Courses are based on Python 2.7.3."

"The Java Bridge is Java code equivalents for all the app inventor components. It is a high-level Android library for rapid development of apps."

Textbook. The textbook Algorithms, 4th Edition by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne [ Amazon · Pearson · InformIT ] surveys the most important algorithms and data structures in use today. The textbook is organized into six chapters: Chapter 1: Fundamentals introduces a scientific and engineering basis for comparing algorithms and making predictions. It also includes our programming model. Chapter 2: Sorting considers several classic sorting algorithms, including insertion sort, mergesort, and quicksort. It also includes a binary heap implementation of a priority queue. Chapter 3: Searching describes several classic symbol table implementations, including binary search trees, red-black trees, and hash tables. Chapter 4: Graphs surveys the most important graph processing problems, including depth-first search, breadth-first search, minimum spanning trees, and shortest paths. Chapter 5: Strings investigates specialized algorithms for string processing, including radix sorting, substring search, tries, regular expressions, and data compression. Chapter 6: Context highlights connections to systems programming, scientific computing, commercial applications, operations research, and intractability.

"Processing cross platform and is a totally free to download, use and publish with programming language. The download includes the programming environment and compiler as well. Processing is based on JAVA and can use many different JAVA libraries. It has also now has the ability to compile apps for Android as well as run as Java Script. It is these to latter functions that I focus on for this site." Note that there are numerous references to the "Getting Started with Processing" textbook, available for a nominal charge at Amazon.

"Writing great software is not that hard. But software developers can be their own worst enemy in trying to code the good stuff because they lapse into sloppy or wrongheaded practices."

The move to scrap the current ICT curriculum and replace it with one based on computer science and programming will benefit business because students will develop technical skills at a younger age

A PDF version is available, free of charge (creative commons)

Producing computer scientists and engineers to fill the demand from domestic companies should be a national priority, said Jeannette Wing, head of the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University.

App Inventor runs through a Web browser. If you're using a phone, you work with the phone connected to your computer by a USB cord. Your app will emerge on the phone bit by bit as you work. If you don't have a phone, there's a phone emulator included with the App Inventor setup package that you can use instead. When you're done building, you can "package" your finished app to produce an "application package" (Android apk file) that can be shared around and installed on any Android phone, just like any other Android app.

Welcome to the distribution center for BYOB (Build Your Own Blocks), an advanced offshoot of Scratch, a visual programming language primarily for kids from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. This version, developed by Jens Mönig with design input and documentation from Brian Harvey, is an attempt to extend the brilliant accessibility of Scratch to somewhat older users-in particular, non-CS-major computer science students-without becoming inaccessible to its original audience. BYOB 3 adds first class lists, sprites, and procedures to BYOB's original contribution of custom blocks and recursion.

First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us. .... When a technology become mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control.