Email Address for Alert Learning

Alert Learning's email address is: Alertlearning@gmail.com

Fees for Alert Learning's Halloween Coding Camp

Fees for Alert Learning's Halloween Coding Camp are as follows:

Morning Session, Youth 9 -13 years of age

October 29th, 30th and 31st

10am - 1pm (Check in from 9:25am)

12 euro daily/35 euro for 3 day camp

Please bring a drink & snack

Afternoon Session, Students 13+ years (Secondary School +)

October 29, 30th and 31st

2pm - 4pm

10 euro daily/25 euro for 3 day camp

More information on camps & learning outcomes may be viewed on earlier posts, or you may phone Cathy Lynch on 086 402 2616 for further information.

How To Book A Place At Alert Learning's Introduction to Python & HTML October Sessions

To book a place at Alert Learning's Halloween Coding Sessions, please email your child's:

Name

Age

Gender

Date of Birth

Session requested (Morning or Afternoon):

  (Morning session is for youth 9-13 years; runs 10am - 1pm)

  Afternoon session is for youth 13+ years in secondary school; runs 2-4pm) 

                          

Address 

Any relevant medical information

Parent's Name, Mobile Number and Email Address

to:

Alertlearning@gmail.com

For further information on course fees, times, dates and venue, please see our blog or phone/text Cathy Lynch on 086 402 2616.

Programming Is The Core Skill Of The 21st Century

Programming skills are becoming increasingly important, and are emerging as an essential core competency for all kinds of 21st Century workers.

According to Mitch Resnick, who spoke at TEDxBeaconStreet in November 2012, the point of teaching kids to code isn’t to create a generation of programmers.  Rather, it is because coding is a gateway to broader spectrum of learning. “When you learn to read, you can then read to learn. And it’s the same thing with coding: If you learn to code, you can code to learn,” he says. Learning to code means learning how to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively. And these skills are applicable to any profession — as well as to expressing yourself in your personal life, too."  Resnick also believes that young people consider themselves "digital natives" because they can text and chat and play games, he says, “but using technologies doesn’t really make one a digital native or fluent in technology.”  

Fluency comes not through interacting with new technologies, but through creating them. The former is like reading, while the latter is like writing. Resnick means this figuratively — that creating new technologies, like writing a book, requires creative expression — but also literally: to make new computer programs, you actually must write the code.

So how can our youth learn how to code when it is not being taught inside the classroom?

At the present time, both businesses and  young people have to be creative to seek out new ways of learning this essential skill.

When daily deal site Living Social couldn't find the coding help it needed, the company took matters into its own hands and successfully created its own qualified programmers. Through an experiment called Hungry Academy,  Living Social paid 24 people to learn computer programming within five months. All two dozen passed the class and became full-time developers at Living Social following their graduation.

“We believe that intelligence and passion are far harder to hire for and much more important than a specific technical skill,” Chad Fowler, LivingSocial’s senior vice president of technology, told the Washington Post last year. “We have enough of the kind of DIY sort of mentality here and, maybe it’s a little bit of hubris, we can teach faster than the industry.”

For students, there are many free online resources such as Codecademy, where individuals can take lessons on writing simple commands in JavaScript, HTML and CSS, Python and Ruby.

As learning online in an isolated environment can be daunting for some, individuals may choose to participate in out of school coding clubs to learn the basics in a supported environment, when such options are available.

If you live in Longford, why not contact Alert Learning and see if your son or daughter has the passion to learn how to code this Halloween?  

Check out http://www.alertlearning.blogspot.ie/ for more information.

Halloween HTML & Python Course for Secondary School Students

Alert Learning is offering a short course for secondary school students who wish to learn the basic fundamentals of Python & HTML in Longford Town this October.

The aim of this course is to provide an overview of education and enterprise opportunities in the IT industry, as well as to provide a general introduction to computer coding via the computer programming coding language "Python".  Basic website development using HTML will also feature as part of the course.

Python is free to use, even for commercial products, because of its OSI-approved open source license and can be used for any programming task, from Graphical User Interface (GUI) programming to web programming with everything else in between.

The Python Software Foundation holds the intellectual property rights behind Python, underwrites the PyCon conference, and funds many other projects in the Python community.

For more information on Python, please see http://www.python.org/.

The learning outcomes of this introductory course include:

1. Basic use of the Python interactive interpreter

2. Strings

3. Integers

4. Floats

5. Lists

6. Variables

7. Simple Expressions

HTML concepts that will be covered include:

1. Explain what web standards are, and why they are needed

2. Know what files comprise a web site

3. Create a site folder

4. HTML Tags

5. HTML Elements

6. HTML Page Structure

Course details are as follows:

Dates:  Tuesday 29th October, Wed 30th October and Thursday the 31st October

Time:  2-4 pm

Venue:  Longford Enterprise Centre

Fees:  10 euro per day; 25 euro for 3 days (2-4 pm)

Number of Participants:  Limited to 10

Requirements:  No hardware is required as a computer and internet access is available at the Longford Enterprise Centre.  Please bring a pen and paper to take notes.

How to register:  Email alertlearning@gmail.com or text/phone Cathy Lynch at 086 402 2616.

Halloween Camp in Longford Town For Youth 9 to 13 Years Old

Alert Learning is delighted to offer an introduction to computer coding in the Longford Enterprise Centre during October 2013.

The Halloween coding camp will offer facilitated training on introductory Python and HTML, as well as a general introduction to careers within the Irish software industry.

Python is free to use, even for commercial products, because of its OSI-approved open source license and can be used for any programming task, from Graphical User Interface (GUI) programming to web programming with everything else in between.

The Python Software Foundation holds the intellectual property rights behind Python, underwrites the PyCon conference, and funds many other projects in the Python community.

For more information on Python, please see http://www.python.org/.

This short course offered by Alert Learning will provide information on basic python fundamentals such as:

1.  Using the Python interactive interpreter

2. Strings

3. Integers

4. Floats

5. Lists

6. Variables

7. Simple Expressions

HTML concepts that will be covered include:

1. Explain what web standards are, and why they are needed

2. Know what files comprise a web site

3. Create a site folder

4. HTML Tags

5. HTML Elements

6. HTML Page Structure

Course details are as follows:

For students 9-13 years of age:

Dates:  Tues 29 October, Wed 30th October and Thursday 31 October

Times:  10am - 1pm.  (Working parents can drop off kids from 9:25, with camp commencing from 10am)

Venue:  Longford Enterprise Centre

Number of Participants:  The camp is limited to 14 participants

Fees:  12 euro per day; 25 euro for 2 days, 35 euro for 3 days (10am to 1pm) payable on the 29th October

Snacks:  Each child should bring their own drink and snack.  Note:  Food and drink cannot be consumed in the IT room.  A designated snack time and venue will be provided on site in the Longford Enterprise Centre.

Other info:  No hardware is required to particpate in this camp, as computer and internet access will be provided.  A paper and pen should be brought for notes

Registration:  Please contact Cathy Lynch at 086 402 2616 or email alertlearning@gmail.com to request a registration form & further information.

Learning How To Code

There is no doubt that that there are plenty of jobs in the IT sector in Ireland, but without Computer Science featuring on either the primary school curriculum or the Leaving Certificate Syllabus, there are few ways that Irish children can be exposed to the necessary skills required to take advantage of these employment opportunities when it is time to enter the workforce.

For children not in proximity to free Coder Dojo sessions  (http://coderdojo.com/), there are plenty of resources (some free!) out there, such as courses from online learning brands such as Khan Academy, Udacity, Coursera, Codecademy, CodeSchool, and edX, but most don't come with an instructor, instead relying on live or recorded videos and possibly peer supported study groups.

Alert Training and Education believes that the best way for children to learn how to code is within an instructor led, facilitated learning environment that delivers the fundamentals of coding via a combination of lecture, video, practical exercises and mentoring. 

Please check back for further postings for learning opportunities in the greater Longford area.