Joomla for Jobs and Joomla for schools:
If anybody keeps an eye on Irish news they will know we are dealing with two major IT related problems in Ireland. There is a skills shortage in IT and a deficiency in Math education. They are no doubt related and it is my belief that Joomla can be utilised to offset their negative effects.
Now rather than going through the various pros and cons of Wordpress, Drupal and other frameworks, CMS's and programming languages, I simply want to present the case for Joomla.
I learned BASIC programming in 1980 in first year at a Christian Brothers school. I was twelve. At the time computers where still pretty rare. The support was limited, and the ecosphere was tiny. But within a few years commodore 64's and Sinclairs where everywhere and kids here typing up reams of simple code copied from computer magazines to make simple simulations and games.
Do kids still do this? I'm so out of touch it's scary. I am the least qualified person to write this proposal. But I believe that if security is looked after by a third party, then php/mysql and in particular joomla can be used to introduce students to IT and become more active participants (as opposed to passive consumers of social media etc.) in the IT world.
I don't think the BASIC was difficult and that much different to php. PHP is perfectly suited to teaching and can provide practical application of math for the student to actively engage with. And these days there is no shortage pf documentation and support out there. Php is a perfect stepping stone to other languages too.
1) Joomla can be used by non IT students to participate in open data initiatives. http://opendata.ie/
2) Joomla can be used by non it students to present their own projects. (In VEC Adult Education colleges this most likely will be to support their business)
3) Joomla can be used by programming students to learn proper MVC and OOP practices as well as API fundamentals
4) The Joomla programming platform can be used to take this knowledge outside of web and into the physical world via arduino etc.
5) Using The JiGS (JiGS Interactive Game System) students can create extensions (plugins, modules and components) to a simple simulation and interact with a virtual world. Data can be access from the outside world via open data (see point 1)and utilised within the simulation.
Has anybody out there any thoughts or comments?
What age did you begin learning to code?
Is there any factors I might not be taking into account?
thanks
Rob
Irish Joomla User Group
www.joomlaireland.org
Tags: Joomla, education, jobs, schools
Views: 113
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gary Brooks on -
Rob,
We see that schools need help learning new technologies. Some schools would never be able to pay for the resources needed to run a large stack to setup dozens of sites. CloudAccess.net has a program we are building to help kids learn Joomla. Take a look at our school program. I hope this helps you some. Pass the word if you can.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ImuONFid_y65f2lgk7K0ZsWCE_8vcTk...
Gary Brooks
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Permalink Reply by Kevin[R] on -
I think back in the day when we didnt have internet to connect to magazines were the only source of information along with the free disks that came with them that introduced you to the various free software that they deemed would be of interest.
I remember so looking forward to the end of the month and the next edition with the free software that would come with the disk and you read it again and again until the next addition, this was back in the days of the Atari computers, happy days.
The difference is these days most kids have consoles and most of what you need is there for you even if you have a PC so the need to code is no longer there in the way it was back when I got in to computing, I dont code but I can work out most of my needs when building a website and of course using Joomla makes that task less reliant on having to code in the true sense.
Remember also back then it was not taught in schools as part of any subject and I have no idea if coding is taught as part of the computing subjects in schools today and even if it is then it is only a certain type of person that will take to it, I can sit for hours learning Joomla or anything else that I want to learn but coding wouldnt hold my attention as I get bored with it as I am a more visual person as most of what interests me regards computing is visual be it webites or 3D software, dont get me wrong I wish I could code but I dont have enough interest in it to learn it and I admire the people that do a great deal.
So I think what I am saying is gone are the days of one person writing a whole game as it is so advanced now but one area where I could see this type of interest returning is in writing apps for all the gadgets we use today other than that the golden era has been lost in the same way that writing a few pages of html for thousands of pounds and calling it a website is as these days we have Joomla, Wordpress etc to fill our needs and we can do this with very little effort.
Kevin[R]
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