Devnology Podcast 043 - Neil Brown

Devnology Podcast

In this episode Freek talks with Neil Brown, who works as a computing education researcher at the University of Kent. He is part of the team that designs, develops and supports the beginners’ Java programming environments, BlueJ and Greenfoot, which between them have 3 million users annually. We talk about the reforms that are taking place in the UK with regard to computing education. We discuss several initiatives like Computing at Schools (CAS), and Code Club and we also discuss tools and approaches to teach kids computing.Neil is on twitter as @twistedsq and regularly writes on his blog on Academic Computing.

This interview was recorded in the wake of the SPA conference on the 28th of June 2013 at the BCS Offices in London.

Interview by @freekl.

Links for this podcast:

• Publications by Neil are on his University of Kent page.
• Neil is involved with the BlueJ and Greenfoot projects.
• Computing at School(CAS) is a community that aims to promote the teaching of computer science at school
• Code Club, nationwide network of volunteer-led after school coding clubs for children aged 9-11
• Computing++ provides a mentor scheme to help spread computer science skills
• Shutdown or restart? The way forward for computing in UK schools” (pdf). The Royal Society, 2012

Bonus link: program your teacher to make a Jam Sandwich

This podcast is in English - Deze podcast is in het Engels