Since the Department of Educations 2013 report ‘ 3D printers in schools: uses in the curriculum, Enriching the teaching of STEM and design subjects’ the use of 3D printers in schools has been steadily increasing. Working with 3D printers has proven success for allowing students to bring ideas and learning to life, and for cultivating crucial 21st century skills.

The ability to see tangible results quickly means 3D printing can ignite students’ excitement for STEM subjects quickly. Using 3D printers in the classroom is also an excellent way to incorporate a project based learning mindset into the classroom.

Deloitte predict that sales related to 3D printing will surpass $2.4 billion in 2019 and $3 billion in 2020. The use of 3D printing is altering industries at lightning speed. How much do we really know about the future of this technology and its capabilities? What predictions can help us when it comes to teaching young learners about 3D printing?

The below predictions from industry insiders help to outline what the future may hold for 3D printing:

• According to Christoph Schell, President 3D Printing & Digital Manufacturing at HP Inc., mass production is the next big thing for 3D printing. He believes ‘3D printing will enable industry to innovate faster, leverage flexible manufacturing, reinvent supply chains, create new markets and produce new parts in new ways that were previously impossible.’
• Jon Bruner, Director of Digital Factory, Formlabs hopes that the development of more cloud driven CAD packages will allow more people to print their ideas. He says that currently many professionals who could get value from 3D printing don’t have the computer-aided design skills they need. Having or having access to the design skills which go hand in hand with printing in 3D is crucial for it to become more mainstream.
• Ric Fulop, CEO, Desktop Metal believes that the revolution currently happening in the 3D printing of metal is very similar to the revolution which brought computing itself to businesses of all sizes. He says that his company is scaling up production to meet the rapidly growing demand. The evolving market share of different materials should be noted here too. Metal 3D printing has risen from 28% to 36%, whereas that of plastics has diminished to 65% from 88%.

• Just last month the world’s first heart with cells and blood vessels was printed by researchers at Tel Aviv University. This break through could revolutionise the future of organ transplants and the likely hood organs are rejected by the body. The next step is for the researchers to culture the heart and teach it how to behave before planting it into an animal. Although there’s still a long way to go Professor Dvir, one of the researchers, says “maybe, in ten years, there will be organ printers in the finest hospitals around the world, and these procedures will be conducted routinely.”
• The prices of resin and machines has dropped drastically in the last few years which leads Chris Grundemann, from Myriad Supply to predict that small batch production will become more normal. He believes this will reduce the need for offshore production and thus a lower demand for long distance global global shipping.

Where do you think 3D printing will take us in the future? In both the classroom and in industry. Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Originally published at https://magpie.education.

A mindset based on security is where we should start. When embracing new technologies in the workplace we should remain somewhat critical to ensure we fully understand the risks posed despite the benefits a product offers. Whether that’s data loss or susceptibility to hacking; understanding where the potential risks lie is a crucial consideration when integrating new technology.

Patty Patria, vice president of IT at Becker College says the best way to mitigate risk is to have layers of protection that can be used to counter the known security risks of emerging technology as well as any potential threats that haven’t yet been identified. Ensuring employees have adequate training and knowledge of this is also of crucial importance.

Of course understanding which technologies pose the most significant threat to your industry (drones at Gatwick anyone?) is another crucial consideration when preparing for the challenges emerging technologies will throw up. The rate of change is now so fast it’s hard to keep up with what products are available and what could happen if they make their way into the wrong hands. However, this still doesn’t make it impossible to know where the weaknesses in your sector are and what could potentially cause a threat.

Creating awareness of jobs which investigate the risks posed by new technologies is another positive step towards managing our safe interaction with the future digital world. Tech futurists, for example, forecast what could potentially go wrong with technology products which are up coming in the mainstream in the business world. One prominent example of this could be, how likely it is that Blockchain might be used for fraudulent activity.

While Cybersecurity is a top priority for most IT teams across the globe, the main issue is according to Frank Ford, leader of the cybersecurity practice at Bain & Co, that official benchmarks do not exist. Of course governments need to step up and ensure policy is keeping up with industry but at the rate the tech industry changes this is much easier said than done. According to a Dell report on the impact of emerging technologies in the workplace the rate of change will be so fast that people will be learning the skills they require in the moment as requirements change at such a rapid rate.

By far the best way way we can continue to integrate technology into our lives effectively, safely and seamlessly is through education. Not just in schools and universities but as individual consumers. Do we know all the risks we are exposing ourselves to when using a phone on a daily basis? We should aim to be less passive in our consumption of technology. We need to encourage the idea of challenging what we know about our phone/laptop and whether we fully understand what it means for companies to have so much data about us.

Understanding the technologies, how they work, how they can be built and the implications of their use; is the capability that the content offered by the Magpie app is designed to develop in learners. Magpie provides a continuing education programme that aids in the navigation of the ever changing landscape of technology. This programme will help maximise the opportunities offered by technology.

It’s impossible to always be fully up to date with emerging technologies but having an understanding of the risks posed by new technologies is crucial to our safe integration with machines. This understanding will not only improve our future productivity but also our quality of life.

Find out more about how we are teaching awareness of rising technologies here.

Originally published at https://magpie.education.

How Can We Prepare for the Risks Posed by Emerging Technologies? was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin

In modern times I would change the last part of the quote from ‘involve me’ to ‘engage me’ and this is a key factor in both Project and Problem Based Learning.

Project Based Learning is a student centric pedagogy, which uses open-ended problems that encourage students to communicate, collaborate and problem solve. They are usually based on real world problems, which encourages deeper learning and facilitates team building, skill sharing and many other 21st Century workplace skills.

The ability to analyse a problem; decompose it into its component parts and to develop a solution is a skill that’s useful in any job. Understand the skills or knowledge required to solve a problem and then either learn or work collaboratively with others is critical in an ever-changing workplace.

Projects in Practice

When working as a group or a team each student brings something different to the table; this fosters inclusivity and helps students acknowledge where their strengths lie. A project I ran at a school in the US involved a group of students developing an online magazine. They needed to create a website, review games, and keep the site updated. We needed coders, graphic artists, reviewers, writers, photographers, editors and researchers.

The group self-managed and each person had an active role in the magazine. The feedback from readers, particularly from real games manufacturers, raised the self-esteem of this group of students dramatically as their voices and critical thinking was validated not just by their peers, but by people working in the entertainment software industry.

Project Based Learning can easily lend itself to teaching an existing curriculum, with outcomes requiring learning techniques or skills specified in a National or Regional Curriculum.

For example, Magpie Education has a weather station base, which includes a segment on alerts. One solution mentioned is to use IFTTT.COM to look at weather data and then email alerts based on rainfall or temperature. A great example of if statements and decision trees from the English National Curriculum.

Resources to help with getting started with PBL:

• This 90 minute course on the Microsoft Education Network provides some useful insights and ideas
• Teacher John Spencer’s blog provides some great easy to use materials for getting started with PBL in the classroom
• To put together a PBL lesson plan this framework is very useful
• Lots of ideas and resources from educators posting to the hashtags #pbl and #pblchat on Twitter

Some further reading:

Passion Project

Project Based Learning can be used to teach almost any subject with limitless possibilities for what those projects focus on. When a student works on something they really care about which is related to personal interests or solves a problem they are passionate about their engagement skyrockets. The learning outcomes are far more likely to be longer lasting than solving problems they don’t take a personal interest in. Perhaps it is only when you learn with full involvement that you get the lifelong skills which will be beneficial for thriving in a work environment.

If you liked the article & know others who will find it useful please do share on twitter using #learningbycreating

Originally published at magpie.education.

So you are a Secondary School Computing teacher and you want to teach some coding with real world relevance, so how about robotics? After all, our robot overlords are due to take over the world any day soon, so we may as well know what makes them tick, tock, crawl, grab and spin.

Where to start?

Dash and Dot and the BeeBots are a little too simple for Secondary school age. Poking around online leads you to the homebrew kings: Arduino, Raspberry Pi and maybe something built on a MicroBit.

The Arduino and the Raspberry Pi based bots are easily going to cost £100 by the time you have added motor shields (needed to connect the chunky powered motors to the delicate current of the processor board), motors, a chassis and something to power it all. If you want to take pictures or stream video — adding a camera takes you up nearer £150.

Although people will tell you you can do anything with a Pi or an Arduino, they are quite light weight processors. Almost everything you need to use to make your bot do something costs extra. The Microbit is cheap and cheerful, but really isn’t up to the job of powering a modern robot.

The Modern EdTech Robot

Where can we find a modern robot? One that can not only move, but also see, think, communicate and is usable by anyone. It would also be cool to expand it to cross-curriculum learning, 3D design and construction.

The wonderfully friendly people of Canada are also producing wonderfully friendly educational robots: EZ-Robot, has a range of kits that reflect the modern trends in robotics. They have a robot controller built in and use the controlling computer to all the heavy lifting. This opens the gates to all manner of cool things.

The brainchild of Canadian roboticist DJ Sures, the EZ-Robots are based on the EZ-B — a custom robotics controller powerful enough to handle just about any task you could throw it.

EZ-B Key Features

• 24 channels of digital I/O — enough capacity to fully animate a humanoid robot with 73 servos all told.
• 8 channels of analog I/O — add all kinds of distance, temperature, gyroscopic sensors.
• 3 I2C ports — add a range of low speed serial devices like displays and lighting arrays.
• Real-time camera port — one of the most important features!

The real beauty of the EZ-B platform is that it was designed to be the heart of anything from the tiny 20cm long adventure-bot to a full sized replica of Robbie the Robot from Lost in Space.

Because of the way it works as a controller for a robot with software running on a control system it has the power to handle all the complicated I/O; while the application using the robot can run on a more powerful system.

Streaming video from the onboard camera can be sent through the internet — even to Microsoft’s Cognitive Service to add AI recognition!

The EZ-B is connected by WiFi, so in theory you can control the robot from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

Originally published at magpie.education. Join the #edtech conversation over on Twitter @magpieeducation

I stole this title from a question asked at the World Government Summit in India this week. The study of human creativity and evolution has become a popular area of research and debate, particularly in regard to the educational needs of the future generation. In his 2017 book The Creative Spark, Agustin Fuentes writes that: “Creativity is at the very root of how we evolved and why we are the way we are. It’s our ability to move back and forth between the realms of “what is” and “what could be” that has enabled us to reach beyond being a successful species to become an exceptional one”

It is Fuentes’ view that evolution can only occur as a result of creativity, which is unique to the human race. It is creativity which has moulded our present-day world, and it is creativity which will develop future society. But, in a world where the tremendous progress of Artificial Intelligence has seen it used successfully to write pop ballads, mimic the styles of great painters and inform creative decisions in filmmaking, can we truly still argue that humans alone have the capacity for creativity?

My answer would be a guarded yes, but only in terms of the entire definition of creativity. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, creativity is ‘the use of imagination or original ideas to create something’. I am certain that works of art, whether visual, musical, performance-based or written, can only occur from human intervention due to the level of creativity involved.

While technology is constantly evolving, I think it will be a long time yet before we see robots performing Swan Lake or constructing great literary works of fiction. Traditionally, humans’ capacity for creativity has set them apart. However, certain events straddle a line and waver my resolve.

The Robots are Coming

Boston Dynamics is a US-based robotics company, famous for its acquisition and subsequent resale by Google. They have a range of robots that mimic bipeds and quadrupeds. The quadrupeds obviously walk on four feet and carry loads, while the bipeds are humanoid-ish and have sophisticated hand like grippers. According to a recent news story, a biped robot working with a quadruped was able to understand the quadruped couldn’t pass through a closed door, so opened the door for it. Does this count as creative problem-solving? Or is it merely pre-programmed behaviour? I would argue pre-programmed behaviour, but this is a grey area and many supporters of AI would disagree

If creativity is a uniquely human capability then what does this mean for our future? AI is moving at such a rate that autonomous vehicles will likely soon populate the roads and shopping will become a totally online process (with autonomous deliveries). As a result of such advances in technology and culture, employment, as we know it, seems set to change.

No longer will we have a need for supermarket cashiers, drivers, bank workers, shopkeepers….indeed, the growing presence of self-service ticket machines, checkouts and banking points in the high street indicates that this process is already beginning.

This doesn’t mean mass unemployment in the future for humans, however, but rather a specialisation of employment; given humans’ distinct aptitude for creativity, it seems likely that the majority of future employment opportunities will appear in this sector.

The Problem with STEM

For the past decade, the UK has steadfastly pushed students towards STEM, with the government most recently insisting that all students must learn both block and syntax-based coding. Every education vendor has a range of STEM products available for sale, and schools work hard to shoe-horn (often hastily-prepared or externally purchased) STEM schemes into their curriculum through lessons and extra-curricular activities.

Despite the focus on STEM, it is not on its own an answer; it is barely even a band-aid. At best, it is a solution for today, but hardly a solution for tomorrow. We are lacking scientists and engineers and coders today, but by the time our primary school-aged students have left education many STEM-related jobs will have already been filled, either by the globally connected workforce or, in some part, by intelligent machines.

Originally published at magpie.education.

Follow us on Twitter @magpieeducation for more #robotic content & opinion!

Play for All Ages

My workshops mostly attract young learners, so you’ll imagine my surprise when I was preparing for an evening workshop and six senior citizens walked in, ready to be introduced to robotics. Unlike my young students, their biggest fear was that they were going to break the robot. Once they realized that wasn’t going to happen, they dived right in. A few also wanted to be up to speed about robots for the sake of their grandchildren because they’re always on the lookout for an engaging STEAM gift.

At this particular workshop, I was demonstrating the KIBO robot, an introductory robotics kit designed to inspire kids ages 4–7 to build and program their own robot. To let my senior citizens get a feel for sequencing and coding, I asked them to scan the ’Forward’ programmable wooden building block that makes the robot move forward one step. After they did that, I told them to move the robot forward three steps. It only took them a moment to realize that they already knew what to do, simply scan the block three times in succession.

With young students just starting their path with robotics, I always notice the pride in accomplishment they get from making robots do things like move in a square or to throw a ball into a bucket. It’s the same excitement that comes with coding: seeing a physical result based on a command they gave. It was no different with the senior citizens that participated in my workshop that day. They were playing with the robot by collaborating and then brainstorming ideas about what to program the robot to do next.

How Teachers Can Set the Stage for Play

When young students see a robot, their first impulse is to take it and run with it (sometimes literally), so educators must be comfortable with the robot beforehand and have a lesson plan or activity prepared. Robots like KIBO orCubelets are great introductory robots that get both teachers and students over the learning curve so they reach success quickly enough that they’re excited to explore more complex capabilities. Here are some specific steps teachers can take to make the most of their robot-enhanced lessons:

1) Combine planning and “tinker time.”

To balance learning and play, I always plan a lesson or sequence example that the students can follow while also leaving students some “tinker time.” This is when they get to do their own thing, to take what they’ve learned and explore “what if” scenarios. “What if I do this, then what will happen?” If the robot doesn’t do what they expected, they try to understand why the action they thought was going to happen didn’t happen. I prefer to think about it as discovering a challenge rather than making a mistake. This approach seems to result in deeper learning. All the time while playing, they are learning the engineering process: asking, imagining, planning, creating, testing and improving, and sharing.

2) Choose tech that’s portable, durable, and has a short learning curve.

My workshops run only 75 to 90 minutes, so I look for robots that are immediately approachable and have projects that are highly achievable in a short period of time, so that we have a great opportunity for success and reinforcement. For younger students, it helps to have robots that are portable and as close to indestructible as possible.

3) Scaffold your lessons.

Robots are a playful way for teachers to scaffold exercises. For example, students might start by learning how to make the robot move forward or backwards, then learn how make it rotate or turn a corner. Once they know these basics, you can say to them, “Okay, now make it form a box and come back to where it started.” They have to figure out on their own that a box is a progression of moving forward and turning. Every time kids succeed in making their robot do what they want, I see little lightbulbs going off in their faces andfist-pumping gestures of success. It’s awesome.

4) Use robots across multiple disciplines.

Robots connect to all aspects of a STEAM curriculum. Just as kids feel free to play with robots, teachers can get creative in the lessons they develop. Some companies offer curriculum guides to help kickstart teachers’ sense of play.

One final thought: “Play” doesn’t necessarily mean kids running around the school yard — it could be an in-class project that really gives students a sense of enjoyment and accomplishment.

I have observed this sense of “wow” that comes with playing with robots across multiple generations.

It’s gratifying to bring that sense of accomplishment to senior citizens, watch parents vicariously participate in their children’s achievements, and bring self-confidence and enthusiasm to our youngest learners — one of the ways that educators and society can build a future population of roboticists, coders, designers, and engineers.

Mike Marks is the founder and chief roboticist for TSC Robotics. This article was originally published in EdTech Digest.

Originally published at magpie.education.

In his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Harrari notes that “to survive and flourish, you will need a lot of mental flexibility and great reserves of emotional balance.” Unfortunately, those are two chattels you cannot buy off Amazon or learn at the Open University’s online forum. Like a corporate intangible asset, those possessions need to be cultivated over an extended period. A good time to start is during the ‘official’ educational years (more about the validity of such practice later). But does our current education system equip us with those two vital skills we need to navigate the challenges of the 21st century?

The Current System

Since the industrial age, the prevailing educational model across all countries has been the feeding of existing knowledge into students followed by a test to ensure the information has been assimilated and instructions are followed. In some parts of the world, this model is followed to a T like in the Middle East and Asia, in others, few attempts were made to digress away from the didactic approach and encourage independent thinking. Whilst the tactics may vary from one culture to another and between countries, the skeletal frame remains very much intact to this day.

Yet to what extent can this knowledge transfer system remain relevant in today’s world? Knowledge which was contained since the dawn of writing in manuscripts, books, journals or others and preserved in the physical confines of institutions is now accessible to all at the press of a button. Instructions that helped us digest and comprehend this knowledge was delivered via teachers at the respective institution. However, instructions today can be delivered via an online tutorial posted on YouTube and easily accessed by millions. Basically, there is no shortage in knowledge or difficulty in its transfer. Those challenges have long been overcome, but new challenges arose because of the emerging knowledge transfer system.

Knowledge was preserved in manuscripts, books and journals and confined within the boundaries of educational and religious institutions

The prevailing open source information system allowed for the production and dissemination of valid and fake knowledge. To distinguish between them, one must resolve to a skill that is not frequently cultivated in our current educational model; that of Critical Thinking. Along with Creativity, Communication and Collaboration, Critical Thinking has been identified by the P21 Partnership for 21st Century Learning as one of the 4C’s “students need to succeed in work, life and citizenship.” The organisation has also ascertained critical life and career skills to navigate the increasingly competitive and complex information age including:

1. Flexibility and Adaptability
2. Initiative and Self-Direction
3. Social and Cross-Cultural Skills
4. Productivity and Accountability
5. Leadership and Responsibility

Yet how many schools have weaved a training program of those skills into existing curricula, let alone teach as subjects in their own right! How many students can adapt to a variety of roles and work effectively in an environment of ambiguity? How many global leaders today demonstrate social and cross-cultural skills that are built on mutual respect and appreciation of ‘the Other’?

Suicide rates amongst teenagers in the USA increased by 25% for boys and 75% for girls in the last 2 years since the start of the decade

You need only observe the rising unemployment figures across the globe to deduce that flexibility and adaptability were not skills mastered during their student years and read the business headlines about corrupt and greedy financial institutions to know that leadership and responsibility are not career skills that were honed on during people’s formative years. Add to these observations the fact that suicide rate amongst teenage boys in the last 2 years increased by 25% since the beginning of the decade and 75% for teenage girls and you can see that self-direction life skills are not supported enough in education today. So, I propose a slightly adjusted model to P21’s recommended framework for 21st century learning.

The Proposed Model

Instead of anchoring the curriculum in the key subjects such as history, maths, science etc. and attempt to weave the recognised skill sets into their knowledge content through tutoring techniques, institutions should ground the educational framework in the required skills and then demonstrate their application across various fields. As indicated earlier there are vast quantities of accessible knowledge, but few have the skills to utilise and apply it for the service of mankind.

For example, a critical thinking class applied to the subject matter of media studies can revolve around themes of content production, authenticity, economic impact etc. The same class applied to a different subject, ex. geography can generate a multitude of topics ranging from geopolitics to carbon rationing and climate change. This will not only develop an individual who has mastered Critical Thinking, but also a fluid individual who can converge key themes across disciplines and apply his/her knowledge according to situational needs. Basically, we cultivate an individual with enough mental flexibility to move seamlessly between different fields and solve problems.

Instead of anchoring the curriculum in key subjects such as maths and science, teach skills classes and demonstrate how they apply to different key subjects

The stage at which this proposed model should come into force (middle school, A-Levels, college etc.), I leave to the experts, but I would urge them to critically evaluate this model before refuting it all together. I would also recommend adding a V to the four C’s: Values Integration and Morals Preservation.

These are the very things that render meaning to our lives. They will provide us with substantial emotional reserves in times of abstruseness. Our moral compass and our human values will become our guiding principles in building a good life when technology takes over our labour hours. In his prophetic 1930 essay entitled Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes noted that our strife for subsistence and economic abundance has been our life’s purpose for millennia. But he predicted that soon,

“the strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them into the lap of economic abundance … Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem — how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well”.

Evidence of this can be seen in the growing number of people who opt for freelance and remote work; whose goal is not to accumulate wealth, but instead to strike a balance between work, life and internal peace. In fact, people are beginning to recognise the difference between Real Needs and Manufactured Needs; thus, the movement towards the experience economy spearheaded by the Millennials. We have a Real Need for transportation; Uber and Zip Car fulfil this. We have a Real Need for accommodation/shelter, Airbnb provides this. On the other, there is a Manufactured Need for status, BMW and Louis Vuitton offer this.

This is not to say that we have reached the point of absolute economic abundance, nor that we turned away from Manufactured Needs, but to point towards the likelihood of a shift in moral values. As Keynes noted,

“We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard.”

Whilst the merits of such times are undeniable, we still must be prepared. It is not the lack of food on the table that drives young teenage girls to bulimia but the skewed human value we attribute to physical appearance. Driven by the multibillion-dollar industry of fashion and beauty and celebrated by an equally greedy media industry, a desirable physical appearance has become a Manufactured Need with grave consequences.

To combat this, we need to nurture in our youth the life skills outlined earlier to arm them with the necessary emotional reserves. The determined capital accumulating industries will not bow to human values anytime soon. More often than not, our economic values are in conflict with human values and as Keynes wisely stated,

“For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.”

All business and civil institutions must operate from the same moral grounds that service mankind

Until the day when fair is fair and foul is foul, our youth need to develop emotional resilience and mental flexibility. This starts in their formative educational years and must continue to be nurtured throughout their lives via business and civil institutions. There is no point in developing agile workers if employers continue to prefer those who conform. Equally futile to install ethical standards in youngsters when they will be abandoned once they join the political arena. All institutions must learn to collaborate and operate on the same moral grounds, recognising the merits of the four Cs + V to create a pleasant habitat for mankind on this earth.

Originally published at magpie.education.

The thing about programmers being male? Well, statistically speaking on the whole it’s right. The gender imbalance in tech is a problem and it’s no secret — today, just 18% of computer science grads are women.

This wasn’t always the case. In 1984 that number was 37% (more than double). Even before the 1980s, various brilliant women pioneered computer programming as we know it now. It’s just that many lack the profile of, say, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

So to redress the balance and give credit where it’s due — and to mark International Women’s Day — we celebrate the work of five fantastic female coders. Some you might know, others you might not, and there’s at least one who’s certain to surprise

Ada Lovelace — The First Computer Programmer

(1815–1852)

Ada Lovelace was Lord Byron’s first child. That’s Lord Byron the notorious British Romantic poet who personified aristocratic excess, and was considered ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’. Ada’s mother, Lady Wentworth, was so keen that Ada avoid nurturing any ‘dangerous poetical tendencies’, that Ada was tutored almost exclusively in mathematics.Ironically, though, Ada would find poetry in numbers. At 17 years old, Ada translated an article written about the so-called analytical machine — an early mechanical computer designed by her friend and mentor, the mathematician Charles Babbage. Along with translating the article from French to English, she added copious notes and annotations of her own about the machine and how it would work.Today, these notes are thought of as the first ever algorithm, making Ada the world’s first ever computer programmer. Inspired to read more? Check out our article on the life and work of this true pioneer.

Jean Jennings Bartik — Software Engineer

(1924–2011)

In her obituary, the New York Times called Jean Bartik ‘one of the first computer programmers and a pioneering forerunner in a technology that came to be known as software.’

Jean was one of the last surviving of a group of six female mathematicians who programmed the Eniac, or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first all-electronic digital computer. Built by the Allies during World War II to calculate the firing trajectories for artillery shells, it could calculate in 30 seconds a trajectory that took a human 20 hours (an increase in speed of nearly 24,000 per cent). Although it wasn’t finished until after the war in 1946, today it’s considered a milestone in modern computing.

According to Jean, the men who were building the machine itself (that’s to say, the machine hardware), considered the actual programming of the machine unimportant. Astonishingly, when the finished Eniac was unveiled to the public, Jean and her fellow female coders were considered unimportant too, and weren’t even introduced at the event.

The oversight, has been readdressed to some extent in recent years, with Jean receiving professional recognition for work. Before the 50th anniversary of the Eniac, the Wall Street Journal ran a story titled: ‘History of Software Begins With Brainy Women’s Work’. As a result, said Jean in 2009, ‘all hell broke loose — everyone was interested in the Eniac women!’

Grace Hopper — The Queen of Software

(1906–1992)

Known better to some as Grandma COBOL or the Queen of Software, Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper revolutionised how we talk to computers. Initially, computers spoke in binary code — and ones and zeros are impossible for humans to read. Grace believed that written code should be closer to English, thereby paving the way for more programmers who could command computers in new and exciting ways. Her work led to the development of — yep — a programming language called COBOL, in 1959. Amazingly, 53 per cent of companies surveyed in 2012 were still using COBOL to build new business applications.

A self-described ‘boat-rocker’, Grace wished to live until the year 2000 so that she could ‘point back to the early days of computers and say to all the doubters, “See? We told you the computer could do all that.”’

She also coined the term ‘bug’ (as in ‘computer bug’), and until she retired from the Navy in 1986 at a spritely 80 years old, she was the US’s oldest acting military officer. Check out her wonderful appearance as sparky 80-year-old on David Letterman’s late-night talk show.

Marissa Mayer — Programmer to CEO

Before she became CEO of Yahoo! at just 36 years old, Marissa Mayer had already done some pretty impressive stuff. A Stanford graduate, in 1999 she joined Google — then still very much a startup — as their twentieth employee and first female engineer. During her time at the search engine giant she led some of its most successful products including Google Maps, Gmail, Google Earth and Google News.For Marissa, the business of technology all comes back to programming and what programming can teach us. At a Bloomberg conference in 2015 she reflected: ‘Yahoo is the most amazing design problem I’ve ever gotten to work on. To me, when I look at [Yahoo’s problems], I see engineering problems. Those principles apply to everything from the culture of the company to how we grow our products.’

Lyndsey Scott — Model/Actress/Coder

Lyndsey Scott puts the ‘super’ in supermodel. She’s worked with biggest names in fashion, from Gucci to Louis Vuitton, and even became the first African-American model to land the prestigious Calvin Klein exclusive during fashion week — the equivalent of being chosen as model industry MVP. Plus she’s a talented actor.

But when she’s not in front of the camera, she’s on the laptop, coding. She devotes about half her time to programming iOS apps for clients. Several of her apps are available on the app store including Educate!, which lets users find out about and help fund entrepreneurs in Africa. Plus, and this is awesome, she’s also ranked as one of the top iOS answer-providers on the #1 programming site, Stack Overflow. She has a degree in computer science and theatre, and there’s even a full tab on her website devoted to coding resources. So far, so cool.

No surprise that Forbes called her (in a very Forbesy way): The 29-year-old stunner who cracks computer codes… and stereotypes.’

At Primo Toys we don’t believe that gender has anything to do with how good a coder you or your child are. That’s why we designed Cubetto to be gender neutral, so that learning to code through play is as appealing to girls as it is to boys. Let’s redress the gender imbalance in programming, starting from the preschool years!

Currently, only 24% of UK STEM jobs are held by women. Young girls are missing out on future career opportunities, so encourage your daughters and pupils to take up STEM subjects, and close the gap in the STEM workforce with our resources.

This article was originally published by PrimoToys — Everything your little one needs to begin their coding adventure.

Originally published at magpie.education.

We’ve seen unprecedented human progress since the industrial revolution. It’s safe to say the cultural mindset and the way we work today is unrecognisable compared to Dickensian times. So why is our education systems still predominantly focused on fact based learning and the ability to recall information in order to succeed in assessments?

Of course there needs to be standardised ways to determine what students have learnt. However there needs to be more of a shift towards skills based assessment as opposed to the current system.But we need a shift towards skill based assessment to do justice to modern ways of learning. Cramming information for a test, which will be long forgotten after that exam is over, is not a sustainable approach to learning.

Pressurising young people to achieve good marks in an assessment squashes creativity.

Is an experiment run by Stanford’s Mark Lepper in the 70s, children were asked to create a piece of art with paper and pens and asked who wanted to create something for the reward of a certificate. Lepper discovered extrinsic motivation can erode someone’s intrinsic desire to create and can severely affect the quality of the work.

Teresa Amabile one of Lepper’s PhD students expanded this experiment with a different art project. She took two groups and set a time-limit to complete the project and there was a prize for the best piece of art. The other group were allowed to draw freely with no time constraints.

The projects was assessed by experts from the Art department, who unanimously agreed the work done with freedom and no promised reward showed evidence of more creativity. This experiment is just one example of many used to argue the advantages of giving children creative freedom in order to learn.

Being able to recite facts is not going to be much use in the workplace of the future. Predictions about the problems we’ll face in the future change as rapidly as new technologies are developed. These predictions are in constant flux. What we can predict however is that these problems will not be solved by reading a textbook but by using lateral thinking.

The professional landscape of the future is still very much unknown and the challenges facing employers and employees alike are also uncertain. The ability to interact with other humans, as well as the machines which will undoubtedly be present in the workplace by 2030 can not be learnt by attending a lecture.

Enter Project Based Learning

You’ve probably come across the term in multiple places but to recap: Project Based Learning (PBL) was “discovered” as a teaching methodology over 100 years ago by education pioneer John Dewey who promoted the idea of “learning by doing.”

PBL empowers students to learn through making projects that combine academics with solving real world challenges. It’s essential for making the link between academic concepts and real world applications.

The key skills PBL enhances are:

• Critical Thinking & assessing ways to improve
• Creative Thinking
• Team Work
• Problem Solving
• Application of Information
• Adaptability
• Communication

All skills which are hugely sought after by 21st century employers.

Learning by doing prepares students for the unpredictable and ever changing world they will be working in. Another noted success of PBL is students engage much more in their work — especially when given the freedom to determine the focus of the project. For example learning how to program a robot to tie your shoe laces or to alert you when you need to walk your dog.

How can PBL be brought into the classroom?

In a Computer Science context learning by creating is an unparalleled concept. You can’t learn to program a robot unless you are actually doing it yourself. Allowing students to identify a project they are excited to solve can lead to an abundance of creativity in the classroom as students become more engaged in their work.

Of course PBL can be time consuming and difficult for teachers to integrate into classes which is probably the main reason why PBL is not mainstream just yet. However with more and more resources to enable curriculum supported integration of PBL into lessons it is without doubt that the popularity of the concept will continue to grow.

To enable STEAM learning projects in a fun and interactive way we have created a variety of different tech kits to to inspire project based learning in the classroom. Find out more about the kits here.

Originally published at magpie.education.