programming

Looking for Jobs?: Look to IT — from ITIF.org

On 04/28/2010, in career development, computer science, IT in HE, programming, by Daniel Christian

Looking for Jobs?: Look to IT — from ITIF.org by Robert D. Atkinson and and Scott M. Andes

In this WebMemo ITIF finds there has been impressive domestic growth of high-skill, high-wage IT jobs over the past ten years. ITIF’s analysis shows there were 688,000 new IT jobs created from 1999-2008, an increase of 26 percent – four times faster than U.S. employment as a whole. The addition of thousands of high-end jobs in the areas of network design and administration as well as data communications analysis and engineering more than offset lower level programming jobs that have moved to other countries. Because of this job growth, U.S. GDP is over $52 billion larger in 2008 than in 1999. The memo reinforces the need to maintain investment in this area. The advent and expansion of new IT systems such as health IT and smart grids, the continued expansion of broadband, and the growth of e-commerce and e-government, show the importance of IT jobs to the U.S. economy going forward.

More encouraging, IT jobs are predicted to grow even further in the next decade. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook…

Tagged with: career development • computer science • IT

From DSC: What sorts of cross-disciplinary assignments come to mind when you view these items?

On 04/22/2010, in art, computer science, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, economics, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, engineering, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, learning spaces, multi-touch, multimedia, music, new media literacies, physics, programming, project-based learning, psychology, science, smart classrooms, sociology, storytelling, student-related, user experience (UX), virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, visualizing information, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

What sorts of cross-disciplinary assignments come to mind when you view these items?

For these and other reasons, I’m trying to get a multi-touch wall built into our future smart classrooms.

Talk about keeping students engaged! Talk about working together in teams — very real-world!

Tagged with: cross-disciplinary assignments • economics/business

Tagged with: cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related • computer science • programming

PHP: What you need to know to play with the web — SmashingMagazine.com

On 04/15/2010, in computer science, programming, web design and production, by Daniel Christian

PHP: What you need to know to play with the web — SmashingMagazine.com by Christian Heilmann

What Is PHP?
PHP is a server-side language that has become a massive success for three reasons:

It is a very easy and forgiving language. Variables can be anything, and you can create them anytime you want.

It is part of the free LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and thus available on almost any server you can rent on the Web.

It does not need a special editor, environment or build process. All you do is create a file of the .php file type, mix PHP and HTML and then put it on your server for rendering.

From DSC:
Christian makes this sound so easy. However, in my experience, programmers have a different skillset that is not easily mastered or obtained. They have a different way of thinking, and the syntax of coding languages is not something many people enjoy working with. That is why there seems to be two camps: web designers (who focus on the front-end of the web) and web developers (who focus on the back end of things such as application development/programming and database integration). Sometimes, a person can bridge those two worlds…but rare is the person who can stay up-to-date and do both sides of the house well…and consistently over time.

Tagged with: computer science • programming • web development

Video demos of upcoming iPad apps — from digital inspiration

On 03/29/2010, in computer science, programming, web design and production, by Daniel Christian

Video demos of upcoming iPad apps — from digital inspiration by Amit Agarwal

Tagged with: computer science • iPad • web design • web development

Google Code University

On 03/08/2010, in computer science, Google, programming, by Daniel Christian

Tagged with: computer science • Google • programming

Prototyping digital learning products — Design Boost — from Startl and IDEO

On 03/03/2010, in computer science, digital learning, programming, by Daniel Christian

Design Boost
Design Boost is a five day bootcamp for prototyping digital learning products.

We’re looking for promising young innovators, to bring learning into the 21st century, to create digital products that excite and engage kids in meaningful learning. In partnership with IDEO, Startl is offering a multi-day immersion for designers and creators, hackers and coders, builders and entrepreneurs.

Boost isn’t about sitting around dreaming up pie-in-the-sky ideas. Its an intense whirlwind of activity, with lots of hands-on, real-world involvement in the design and product development process. You’ll be taking the seed of an idea and seeing whether you can grow it into an effective and marketable learning product. Along the way, you’ll be steeped in how to create user-centered, learning-rich and market-smart designs and learn the tricks that seasoned entrepreneurs use to generate new products quickly and cheaply. But you won’t be doing this on your own. You’ll be surrounded by inspiring peers and collaborating with them to amp up your creativity and rigor.

Tagged with: digital audio • digital learning • digital video