Kitchen table conversations

This election cycle much has been made out of what should be left to families to discuss over "kitchen table" conversations. Should it be racism? Should it be sex education? Should it be New Jersey's LGBTQ inclusive curriculum? Here are the topics we discuss in my family with our two kids — one in middle school, the other in high school.

Collaborative work in the cloud: what I learned teaching my daughter how to code

Whether my third grader becomes a software engineer when she grows up remains to be seen. The ability to customize and extend the behavior of a computer is a skill that is going to remain with her for the lifetime. If she wants to be an educator she can make educational apps. If she becomes a business person or a scientist she will be able to use computers to her advantage. This is what being a citizen developer is all about.

Attracting STEM Graduates to Traditional Enterprise IT

Techcrunch reports: If 17-year-old Google is at all worried that it’s losing its mojo, it should find some new data highly reassuring. According to a survey of 19,000 students across 340 universities around the world, Google is still their top choice when asked where they’d want to work. Their other top picks, in descending order: … Continue reading Attracting STEM Graduates to Traditional Enterprise IT

Microsoft and Apple Have Everything to Lose if Chromebooks Succeed

Desperate times call for desperate measures at Microsoft. Frobes reports: Despite a lacklustre start, Chromebooks are becoming relatively popular in the super-budget end of the portable market. This has worried Microsoft for some time. After all, with a Google-centric experience, not to mention an operating system in the form of Chrome OS, there’s little if … Continue reading Microsoft and Apple Have Everything to Lose if Chromebooks Succeed

Have computers become too complicated for teaching ?

I learned computer programming on a Cold War era Soviet programmable calculator called Elektronika MK-61. It was a very simple device that used a four element calculation stack, a handful of registers, and programming it was very much like writing assembler code. It had a number of undocumented features that made simple games possible. It's … Continue reading Have computers become too complicated for teaching ?