New ICT Programing Software

[Dazzle]

I think Visual Basic 2010 and Expression are available with the Academic Alliance for lab installs (which is included with EES). AA has also merged with Dreamspark.

Hiya could you explain what you mean when you say lab installs? Also what is EES?

[gavlar]

Hiya could you explain what you mean when you say lab installs? Also what is EES?

By lab install I mean installing the software in a computer lab/suite/classroom.

Q. Our computer lab is used by students from several departments. Can we install the MSDNAA software on the lab computers and allow it to be used by the students from the other departments?

A. Yes, one of the goals of the MSDNAA program is to make the software available for students to experiment with in a laboratory setting. Even if a member department shares a lab with another department, the software may be installed on lab computers and made accessible to any student wishing to use the computers. Be aware that member departments do not have the legal right to install the software on lab computers not affiliated with the member department. Additionally, the only students who would have the right to install the program software on their personal computers are those who are taking at least one credit class in the member department.

MSDNAA FAQs for Faculty: General Information About the Program

EES is a volume licensing subscription from Microsoft for Educational Establishments.

[Dazzle]

By lab install I mean installing the software in a computer lab/suite/classroom.


MSDNAA FAQs for Faculty: General Information About the Program

EES is a volume licensing subscription from Microsoft for Educational Establishments.

Interesting thank you

[PiqueABoo]

The point of the curriculum change is so that children can learn something useful, ie how to program, which at GCSE level requires a text editor at most.

Uh huh.. prior to posting I'd read a thread on the RM forum where a significant part of the general drift is the difficulties deploying and running a VPC XP+VS Pro image which apparently is a 5-6GB VHD and needs a minimum 2GB RAM. Now I've spent more years professionally s/w engineering than the kids who'll start learning with that have lived, and the conversation just seems surreal. Insane. I definitely get graphical programming a la Scratch, Kodu etc. (8yo Sprogette currently loves them almost as much as Moshi Monsters) and I wouldn't want anything less than a decent syntax highlighting editor a la Notepad++, possibly more. But VS Pro? Windows SDKs? What the.. ?!?

Not working for a s/w house team any more (where some of the bells & whistles do matter) if I'm writing dotNet my usual weapon of choice is VS C# *Express* because it does everything I ever need to do, and some code I'd rather write myself than have written for me. Why a beginner would need VS Pro is completely beyond me and they won't need the Windows SDK because half of that essentially relates to C++ native code which I assume definitely isn't on the curriculum(?), and web browsers make the dotNet half redundant, not that this is about learning dotNet surely?

It will be interesting to see how it plays out because there's a very observable split: One side is doing the same old "must use industry standard mega tools" stuff and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it, the others might actually have taken some clear hints from some of those ICT v. Computing reports etc. Whatever, I'll be betting on the ones with the Raspberry Pis and the like. See also my sig.

[CyberNerd]

It will be interesting to see how it plays out because there's a very observable split: One side is doing the same old "must use industry standard mega tools" stuff and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it, the others might actually have taken some clear hints from some of those ICT v. Computing reports etc. Whatever, I'll be betting on the ones with the Raspberry Pis and the like. See also my sig.

I was thinking exactly the same thing this evening with respect to the 'industry standard' argument. Scratch is out.

I'm also wondering why network managers think that a raspberry pi with root linux, python and a network connection is going to be such a good idea - given that it is an ideal hackers environment (and therefore programmers environment).

The only sure thing is that MS will produce and market the tools to make sure the next generation of programmers can only use MS, thus exacerbating the issue of increasing hardware requirements.

[Arthur]

Would a cloud-based development environment such as ApplicationCraft be suitable?

[zag]

Why a beginner would need VS Pro is completely beyond me and they won't need the Windows SDK because half of that essentially relates to C++ native code which I assume definitely isn't on the curriculum(?), and web browsers make the dotNet half redundant, not that this is about learning dotNet surely?

This......!

[sister_annex]

Along with Kodu and a few others I can't remember atm, we have just put out Yenka.com it was introduced to us by one of our new NQTs parts of it are completely free, others you have to pay for. However, they are currently doing an 'Offer us a price for our product' which to be honest seems like a good way to get it cheap!

[EJWill]

Would a cloud-based development environment such as ApplicationCraft be suitable?

This seems absolutely brilliant for a school learning environment. With an option for an in-house intranet server in the works, and the talk of Education licensing (Education License).

We'll be seriously looking into this for our school.