Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Suggestions for a coding club that is just starting?

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

Thank you Brendan and Thomas for your replies.

I see that (1) to start it is nice to think about something you could
benefit from coding, and (2) CoderDojo is a nice organisation to join.
Both sound good! I'll past this information along, and I hope the lead
teacher can involve their students in CoderDojo events.

With that said, I think I might need to re-phrase my original post a
bit: How do you broach the subject of Free Software to someone for the
first time? Specifically, what about in the case of a new coding club
for secondary school students? Are there examples of successful coding
clubs that started with an emphasise on Free Software? Are there
people with experience in communicating to these groups that "remember
to release your software under a Free license", "make the source code
available", etc.? Thanks!

On 17/09/2015, brendanpmurray@gmail.com <brendanpmurray@gmail.com> wrote:
> I strongly recommend that you start a CoderDojo <https://coderdojo.com/>-
> its ethos is opensource (all the docs, samples, code, etc are all free),
> it's all driven by volunteers (free) and there's a worldwide network of
> people willing to help (also free). I have been involved for the past few
> years and the kids learn a lot!
>
> On Thu, 17 Sep 2015 at 19:18 Thomas HARDING <tom@thomas-harding.name>
> wrote:
>
>> Le 17/09/2015 17:10, Pen-Yuan Hsing a écrit :
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > First of all, thanks everyone for your help several weeks ago on the
>> > Freeing of a scientific software I mentioned here. I have a couple
>> > follow up questions which I plan to post in another message, but for
>> > now there is another issue.
>> >
>> > I learned that a teacher in a secondary school in my town is starting
>> > a coding club for their students (probably teenagers), and they're
>> > looking for information or other direct support regarding how to start
>> > it. Since this coding club is just starting, I think this is a great
>> > opportunity to include in their agenda the concept of Free Software.
>> >
>> > I am not an active coder myself, but care a lot about Free Software,
>> > and I want to do what I can to make sure this club goes in the "right
>> > direction". However, I have zero experience doing this. Do folks here
>> > have ideas, or better yet links to existing
>> > websites/information/teaching plans that are appropriate for this? I
>> > plan to email the lead teacher soon about the important of Free
>> > Software in their club, and would appreciate anything you can
>> > provide!! I think the more we can give the teacher the better. Thanks!!
>> >
>> [having only little skills in English, please point any impairing
>> mistake (I'm French)]
>>
>> Fortunately, coding is one of the most outstanding features given by
>> Free Software, not only by design but by lang::fr::nature :)
>>
>> That said, first question is not "what do you want to code" but "what do
>> you need needing coding": first step to learn for coding is to something
>> simple which *you want to exists but can't find*, or, at option, reallly
>> do not already exists, or, more, already exists but do not fit
>> *perfectly* *your* needs.
>>
>> My opinion is: some tools always exists but never fit perfectly your
>> needs.
>>
>> Just take the ways to rotate a screen and the way and conditions *you
>> think* a screen should rotate. You have a project, scalable from a bash
>> alias to a C project (Ada would work too if you want for contracts),
>> with any kind of programming model and typed level.
>>
>> You'll also want the screen rotates from a web interface, authenticated
>> and with no [fakes?] to a complete classroom if your goal is to say
>> "now, we start to read text displayed vertically as a book, please
>> rotate your screen counerclockwise... No Allan, *counter*clockwise, the
>> goal is not to read head top-bottom").
>>
>> While you can do almost anything with free software with excerpt for (at
>> time) quantic crypto break and low cost blu-ray tray scrambled video
>> reading, anyone in the crew needs only whiches :-)