I introduced Wanderers to my topic with the write-up below.
During the presentation itself, I screened various learning tools I've seen used around Greater Portland, in connection with my code school work.
The slides merge coding with design work, as tool-making and tool-using is highly multidisciplinary.
What Does the Future Bode, in Terms of Learning to Code?
The "code school" business is still shaping up in a rough and tumble world, full of uncertainties.
O'Reilly Media finally threw in the towel, closing its fledgling School of Technology. So then what happened to Wanderer Kirby Urner, one of the school's full time Python mentors (souvenir biz cards will be available)?
He's branched out into mentoring much younger folk, in addition to sometimes hosting a night gig for professional adults, off and on (a forty hour ordeal). He did a Python for Wanderers a few years ago, Allen Taylor attending.
Coding with Kids is the new company, based in Redmond, so you might be thinking Windows, but we use Chromebooks on resources in the cloud, what Kirby plans to project. After school, in schools (both public and private).
Given Kirby's unique perspective from the front lines, along with years spent developing curriculum for his Oregon Curriculum Network [1], we should get some interesting discussion going, starting with a 20 minute show and tell (projected) featuring some of the latest tools now in use in education.
Presenter's bio:
Kirby is a former full time math teach (St. Dom's in Jersey City), text book editor, political activist etc., an early childhood denizen of Portland with an upbringing overseas (Rome, Manila) and a degree from Princeton (philosophy a focus).
He returned to Portland in his later twenties to met his late wife Dawn Wicca and raise a family. (ISEPP was one of Dawn's bookkeeping clients back in the 1990s). Kirby specialized in writing programs for nonprofits and for medical research.
Full resume: http://grunch.net/kirby-urner
Want to optionally do some homework ahead of time? Read these to bone up on the presenter's views:
On Medium:
https://medium.com/@kirbyurner/is-code-school-the-new-high-school-30a8874170b https://medium.com/@kirbyurner/the-plight-of-high-school-math-teachers-c0faf0a6efe6
Ongoing Debate @ Math Forum:
http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=2852324
[1] Oregon Curriculum Network
http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/cp4e.html
http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/
http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Math
